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Dear Support,

We’d need support for loading/saving and displaying Vista icon files, meaning files with .ico extension that may or may not have raw PNG data in them. We’d also need support to select only one image from such icon file in case there is more than one image in it. Do you have such feature or do you plan to implement it any time soon?

I know that CExtSkinBitmap can load png images from .png files and resource, but is there support for such .ico files? I also read that your icons are Vista quality, but as I understand they are still 32-bit bitmaps with alpha channel, right?

Thank you,
Chris

Yes, Prof-UIS uses 32-bit bitmaps with alpha channel everywhere and even the loaded ICO files are converted into such bitmaps. We did not plan to support loading and saving icons of the Vista/XP/2000 fomat icons format due to following reasons:

1) In most cases, it’s convenient to use one bitmap only instead of collection of bitmaps as it is implemented in the ICO format.

2) The 32-bit bitmap format with alpha channel provides the highest possible quality for raster images. Most of displays use 16/24/32-bit color modes and there is no need for lower quality icons at present and in the future.

3) Using the CExtBitmap class, you can stretch the bitmap with Adobe Photoshop quality by applying the appropriate filter algorithm. This makes multiple bitmaps stored in the ICO file unneeded.

Do you have any specific reason to use the ICO format?

These reasons are not applicable when ico file is selected by user and not provided by developer. For us the mentioned support is needed for icons selected by user.

It is not a problem to code a helper class which contains everything what the ICO file can contain, parse/load the documented ICO format and save it. But this will be a helper class only because Prof-UIS uses 32-bit bitmaps with alpha channel. Please let us know if you have any additional comments and wishes?

Thank you for the offer! But if you do not have a solution done and would make it only as a helper class for us, you don’t need to bother with it! We will use the CxImage library then.

Best regards,
Chris