Do I have to use .PNG for Icons?

patientzero · 09-11-2003, 01:07 PM

Stupid little question:

I have some really nice high color windows custom icons and would like to use them in Linux instead of the blah color rh9 icons... is there a way for me to do this, or to install nicer icon packs- i have seen other people's systems with VERY nice icons...

JIm

Proud · 09-11-2003, 01:17 PM

Are these for Kde or Gnome? Either way, try getting a downloadable icon pack and see how to edit it to point to other files in it's subdirectories. I doubt the image type is hardcoded, there's broad support for things like .jpg etc.

contrasutra · 09-11-2003, 01:19 PM

.ICO is a Windows format, you cant use it in Linux.

There is a Windows program called @icon Sushi though, its free,and it'll convert .ICOs to .PNG.

Try it out.

PNGs are higher quality than .ICO by the way.

wapcaplet · 09-11-2003, 02:31 PM

Windows .ico are just .bmp files with a different extension, IIRC. Just about any program that can read .bmp will convert them. As for .png being higher quality... both png and bmp/ico can be true-color; I don't know if bmp/ico can be transparent or semitransparent in Gnome or whatnot, though. But it's not as if converting your bmp/ico images to png format is going to make them look better

patientzero · 09-11-2003, 03:17 PM

Hey thanks, I'm going to go look for that png conversion proggie, but like isn't there a way of doing this IN linux, (spits at windows) ?

MasterC · 09-21-2003, 02:20 AM

Sure there is:
convert file.ico file.png

convert is a tool from the ImageMagick utility. Greatest thing I've ever come across for a wide variety of image manipulation techniques.

Cool

megaspaz · 09-21-2003, 03:35 AM

as far as your first question goes, you do not have to use .png for linux icons (red hat anyway). there's another format with a .xpm extension that can also be used for icons. if you're using kde, there's a program called kiconedit that will convert .ico files to .png and .xpm files. i don't know the equivalent program on gnome though. of course as master c suggested, there's also image magik. also the gimp will convert a bunch of different image types to .png also (not .ico or .icns though).