Basic question about Icons

Dear Support

I am a non-technical person working for a software house. We have been using your products for many years and we want to do one simple thing. Can you please tell me whether it is possible or if, as we suspect, is not possible with even the latest version of Fortran 95.

We are attempting to re-design our program icons and I have drawn 24x24 pixel bitmaps in colour. Each icon has 3 states, all of them controlled by Fortran95. I have produced just one bitmap for each icon.

1. Available but not pressed
2. Available and pressed
3. Unavailable

The top 2 work fine. Either the icon is in colour and then pops with a border around it when it is clicked, or remains greyscale until the cursor is moved over it. Either is acceptable.

However, when the icon is unavailable because, for instance, this command is not possible for any reason, we would expect the icon to be greyed. However, this 'greyed state' is a monochrome grey and just looks like a blob. None of the internal detail of the icon is available because all you can see is an outline.

I have included a picture of what it is I'm talking about below...

Any help would be appreciated.

Top left - Greyed state before the cursor is moved over the command. This is okay. Top right - When the cursor is clicked or mouse moved over, the icon is coloured in and a highlight box is drawn. This too is okay. Lower Left - The icon is unavailable and appears as a dark grey blob. This is not acceptable. Lower right - The icon becomes available and is coloured in and is highlighted when clicked.

Many thanks.

Nigel

If you are using %ib then there is a recent thread on this problem elsewhere in this forum. Basically you have to make sure that the pixel colour for each border pixel does not change as you walk the border. Usually it is (192,192,192).

Thank you.

In the example images above the entire background of each bitmap is 192.192.192, so that cannot be the problem.

Why is there a difference between the 'greyed' image in the upper left and the Mr Blobby splat in the lower left? That's all I'm trying to determine. Is this a bug in the software, or is there a reason for it?

Does this make sense?

It would be a good idea to check every border pixel. It only takes one to be different from (192,192,192) and it will go wrong.

I've currently got no way of checking that at the moment, but are you saying that if the image has a 1 pixel wide border of 192.192.192 that the icon will turn 'grey' like the image in the top left?

Yes, I think that is what should happen but, if I remember correctly, it does not have to be (192,192,192). It could be any colour as long as it is the same colour at every border pixel.

I have tried your suggestion and it still doesn't work. Instead of getting the nice greyscale image (like I keep saying is the image in the top left of the images in my first post) all I see is a very dark grey blob with no gradation of grey.

Can you please copy the image I have posted below and check it with your software and tell me what you find. I would expect each of the three coloured bands to be progressively darker and lighter, but all you get is 3 very dark grey bands - all the same colour.

This problem has already delayed us by 3 days because we have been fiddling expecting it to work, but with no success.

If it doesn't work will there be a bug fix and if it does, can you please explain how we can get it to work please?

By the way, isn't there a technical support line for these things or does support have to be done via the forum?

Thanks.

Hi Nigel,

I know exactly what is happening to you. Apologies for not helping sooner, but I have been away on a course.

With %ib, ALL pixels that aren't background colour (192, 192, 192 is the best background colour) get the medium grey treatment that gives you the 'Mr Blobby' appearance. You CAN get round it for some shapes, but in my experience, a finely-crafted anti-aliased beautifully-drawn icon gives you a lousy greyed out image with %ib, but a simple geometric shape often comes out well.

You may have some success by replacing bits of your base icon in colours that are close to 192,192,192 with exactly 192,192,192, so that they don't draw as mid-grey in the greyed out image.

Although the background colour is set when you make a 1-pixel border of any colour, I discovered other issues if that isn't 192, 192, 192. I can't remember what they were!

The alternative is to not use %ib, but instead use the older %tb, where you create all the icon button states separately. The logic of %tb is a bit different to %ib.

I found that on my 1680x1050 widescreen laptop, %tb buttons appear with an irregular gap between them (and sometimes without) so that I can't produce 'Office 2003' sculpted toolbars, although I have not been able to find any other computer that has this vice, and they look lovely on any other computer! As a result, I have a setting that permits the user to select the toolbar format that works best, although this is done with examples, not explicitly mentioning %ib and %tb ...

Send me a private message with your e mail if you would like me to send you examples.

Regards

Eddie

Note to Paul,

I had a 'private exchange' with Nigel about this. The issue is that %ib does a great job with most variants of the basic icon, but simply produces a greyed out icon that differentiates only 'foreground' from 'background', or a monochrome rendering of the basic icon expressed in 2 shades of grey.

Including with myself, this issue has come up at least 3 times.

It really needs some more explicit description in the help file (or elsewhere) or perhaps even a look at how the greyed-out version is produced?

Since %ib has no 'selected' state, it isn't a replacement for %tb, it is a complement to it.

Eddie