(?) icons with transparent parts...

[vitaly85]

Help!!! I want to make a shortcut icon in photoimpact that could have a transparent parts?
for example i want to make it like that:

but after i save and apply as a shortcut, it looks like that:

maybe there is a way to make that icons by PhotoImpact (in *.ico ext)?



(especially for win98)

[MaryLouW]

Not that I know of. You could always make your icons, then open them in an icon making program to make the background transparent. If you find a way, let me know - mine all have a white background like yours.

[thecoalman]

I had the same question... http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic.php?t=1235

Apparently you can't do it. Anyhow there's a specific way your supposed to make them, at least for XPif you want to do it the right way. Otherwise design it with a square background. Don't know why they would leave something as simple as having a transparent background out of icons, must be a licensing thing I would hope.

[MaryLouW]

Could be licensing in that they cannot create an .ico format. I just put a square background around mine but they would look nicer without it. Won't complain though, at least I can have part of what I want.

[thecoalman]

Could be licensing in that they cannot create an .ico format.

Well they can use the ico format. I'm just speculating that a part of the ico format that makes it transparent needs to be licensed. It was the same with gif, it wasn't the gif format but the compression tecnology used that required the licensing. I can see no other reason why they wouldn't have implemented transparent icons, I'm sure I or the other poster have not been the first to ask about it.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/6/19/35919/4079

September 1986: The Sperry Corporation (owners of the Sperry Research Center) and the Burroughs Corporation merge to form Unisys.
15th June 1987: Bob Berry and the team at Compuserve release a new graphics file format called GIF (Graphics Interchange Format). It can handle anything from 2 to 256 colours -- wow! -- and the graphics data is compressed with LZW. Just like Spencer, they had read the LZW algorithm in a magazine and had wrongly assumed that it wasn't patented. Unisys does nothing.
1988: Unisys does nothing. The GIF format becomes even more popular.
1989: Unisys does nothing, although Raymond Gardner tries to bring up the issue in public. Unisys have been ensuring hardware manufacturers (e.g. V.42bis modem manufacturers and Postscript printer manufacturers) are licensed. The GIF format becomes even more popular.
1990: Unisys says nothing. The GIF format becomes even more popular.
1991: Unisys says nothing. The GIF format becomes even more popular.
1992: Unisys says nothing. The GIF format becomes even more popular.
1993: Unisys says nothing. The GIF format becomes even more popular.
1994: Unisys says ... no, wait, on 24th December 1994, Unisys and Compuserve jointly announce that any developers writing software that creates or reads the GIF file format will have to license the LZW patent from Unisys! It's a GIF tax! Burn all GIFs! Merry Christmas!

[praebo1557]

vitaly85 I completely agree with yor argument.