Windows Vista icons. ?

is there a styleguide online yet? if not how long before a guide like the create XP icons will be up?

I have some comments that I hope will be helpful to anyone interested in this topic. Disclaimer: As the developer of Microangelo icon tools, my insights are technically based (read that as, "has no artistic talent").

As Raymond wrote, colors and sizes in Vista are the same as Windows XP. But there is also a new twist. Icons have always been limited to the maximum size of 256x256 - a technical detail. Although standard installations of previous Windows platforms supported a maximum icon size of 48x48, Vista embraces the maximum 256x256 size for a new purpose. (see "Hi-Res" below)

There will be a compression mechanism for icon images introduced in Vista. This should NOT be a concern to programmers or artists. The compression is simply a smart move by MSFT to optimize CPU speed vs. memory for the size of these images. Developers should concentrate on providing the 256x256 images and leave the compression details to an icon editor like Microangelo.

That's my .02 on the first two questions of this thread - colors and sizes. Here are a few comments and observations on "other details":

Three-dimensions:
Vista will push the envelope on three-dimensionality in numerous ways, and icons are only a small piece of that direction. Whereas XP icons introduced drop shadows on a "flat" desktop, Vista icons deliver true dimensionality. The XP icon style guide's recommendation for a drop shadow suggested the appearance of a flat, cardboard cutout in front of a vertical wall (the desktop). Vista icons suggest true depth - an object with a realistic shadow that extends as it would appear on a horizontal shelf.

Point-of-reference:
Since Windows 95, the angle-of-light aspect on the desktop has been from "over your left shoulder". Top/left edges are highlighted and bottom/right edges are shadowed. Later, Windows XP introduced 3D characteristics to icons. All of the XP icons were presented to the user on a horizontal, 45 degree angle "counter-clockwise", rotated towards the right side of the display, away from the light source. On the contrary, Vista icons appear to be developing just the opposite - 45 degrees to the left - facing directly into the light source from a horizontal perspective.

Hi-Res:
The Vista shell (i.e. Explorer, Search, Open/Save, etc...) introduces detailed information for all objects. One example is a new information bar (area) where Vista displays details about the currently selected object. Vista will display the best, hi-res icon image on the left side of this information bar. The display size of this image is currently user-selectable, low-med-hi. Users can configure this size on a per-folder basis or set it globally, the same way that current folder customization allows. The new 256x256 image size is large enough for Vista to scale the image for all of its purposes, including the lo-med-hi user setting for information bars. For applications, the quality of this image depends on the image content of the supporting icons. An application should provide hi-res 256x256 images in its program and document icons to provide the best experience for Windows Vista users.

Beyond:
Vista will continue to support hardware/software configurations that require non-XP color depths such as 16-color and hi-color, and these color depths are included in the new 256x256 hi-res images. I've made some observations on these lower color depth images - I don't know if anyone is interested...SAT (start a thread)

I think this is a good time for me to pause to see if/what anyone might be interested in exploring further...

-Len

Hi, Corey. I'm not sure I fully understand your questions. Let me know if the following is helpful or not. Under released versions of Windows, the highest icon size that a user can customize to is 72x72. Of course there are custom software packages that have pushed to 128x128. Since you're doing a tweak program, you should be able to test setting that size higher in the registry of any version of Windows and see what happens.

The size of the image that is displayed, well, Windows has historically selected the image closest to its needs in an icon resource and, if necessary, scaled it to the required size.

As to your question, "Is it possible to add icons bigger than 256x256": The file format of the icon resource has remained standard since its inception. The header (directory) at the beginning of the resource has one byte each allocated for the width and height. One byte can only store values from 0 to 255. So the 256x256 images actually appear as 0x0 in the directory of the resource. Of course there is more information further into the resource, so it is possible to enhance new Windows code to be aware of 256x256 images (like Vista) and investigate further. Only MSFT would know if supporting larger images were planned (not accidentally supported...). My best guess is that 256 will remain the top size for some time, at the very least until older versions of Windows are phased out.

Hi ALL,

Try this:

Press and Hold "Ctrl" and while pressing, if you use a mouse with a rollerwheel,

To decrease Icon Size roll the wheel towards you, and vice versa to increase...

Should do want you want!!!