Higher resolution desktop icon for the PlayNC Launcher?
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2011-04-27 06:02 in Suggestions and Ideas
Huh. My NCSoft Launcher isn't pixelated like that.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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I have all of my desktop icons and font sizes increased to 125% in Windows 7's display preferences. It makes things easier to read and see for me, and it makes better use of an otherwise very large screen. I'm sure the icon isn't pixellated at default size, but both Windows 7 and Windows XP before it have options to enlarge icons on the desktop. Windows XP, I believe, called it "Use Large Icons" while Windows 7 just has a scale that goes 100% -> 125% ->150% size for everything.|
Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
Huh. My NCSoft Launcher isn't pixelated like that.
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Of course, having increased everything to 125% size has the unfortunate side effect of making the now larger text not fit some programmes' intended text boxes, like Mids' Hero and Villain Designer, but most of those have the option to override text size and shrink it back to where it fits.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Come on over to the art forum and I'm sure one of the gurus there can fix you up with a hot new icon. Really though, Paragon Studios can't do a whole lot about the NCSoft distributed icon. >_>
Roxy On DA...Finally!
I don't know the exact steps on Win7, but on XP:
1. Right click shortcut
2. Select Properties
3. Select Change Icon
4. Browse to find better image
5. OK, OK, OK. Voila, better icon!
I did this to change the NCLauncher icon into the CoH icon, since I don't use it to launch anything other than City. (Guild Wars has its own launcher.)
Paragon Wiki: http://www.paragonwiki.com
City Info Terminal: http://cit.cohtitan.com
Mids Hero Designer: http://www.cohplanner.com
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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Unfortunately, the City of Heroes icon is similarly low-res, or I'd use that. I've wanted to make my own icons for some time, but while I can make the actual pics, I've no idea how to package them as icons, so I can only select from existing icons I already have, and I don't have many that are high-res. Not many appropriate ones, anyway.
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Originally Posted by Aggelakis
I did this to change the NCLauncher icon into the CoH icon, since I don't use it to launch anything other than City. (Guild Wars has its own launcher.)
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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If you have pics you want to use as icons. Download a trial of Microangelo. I used to use it all the time to make custom icons and cursors (I still use the cursors I made from sprites ripped from Kirby's Dreamland to this day). Once you get it, it should be pretty self-explanatory if you're familiar with other image-editing software.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Unfortunately, the City of Heroes icon is similarly low-res, or I'd use that. I've wanted to make my own icons for some time, but while I can make the actual pics, I've no idea how to package them as icons, so I can only select from existing icons I already have, and I don't have many that are high-res. Not many appropriate ones, anyway.
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@Johnstone & @Johnstone 2
ediblePoly.com
All my characters
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Hmm... I could potentially just rip that fancy high-detail NC Soft logo they have on all the newer City of Heroes trailers and crop/resize it down to, say, 256x256 and just use that.|
Originally Posted by Johnstone
If you have pics you want to use as icons. Download a trial of Microangelo. I used to use it all the time to make custom icons and cursors (I still use the cursors I made from sprites ripped from Kirby's Dreamland to this day). Once you get it, it should be pretty self-explanatory if you're familiar with other image-editing software.
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I also checked, and I believe that at the settings I have right now, my desktop icons are 60x60 pixels. I'd like to shoot above that a bit in case I need a larger icon for somewhere, but probably not by as much as 256x256.
I'll have a look at that programme, thank you. Media Player Classic should be able to take a decent snapshot from one of the high-res trailers and IrfanView should be able to handle the image editing. Just hope I can figure out how to package that as an icon file. I'm surprised I can't load a JPG straight into an icon, to be honest.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Microangelo will let you almost do this. Just make a JPG/PNG in whatever image-editing software you want and ctrl-c, then open up Microangelo and make a new icon at 256x256 and ctrl-v, save it as an ICO file.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I'm surprised I can't load a JPG straight into an icon, to be honest.
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edit: Just loaded up Microangelo to check things out, and when you create a new icon file, you can choose a "fill image". It'll load any image file you have and resize it for use as an icon of the desired resolution. So all you need to do is find a square NCSoft logo and load that up as the fill image and you're good to go. Why haven't I just done this for you already? brb, making icon
edit: Back with icon. Took this image:
and loaded it using the feature in Microangelo I just mentioned. So here's the icon. And here's a version without the text, just the logo as the icon.
@Johnstone & @Johnstone 2
ediblePoly.com
All my characters
Huh... "The file contains no icons." I know it does, because IrfanView will open it, but Windows XP refuses to load either icon file. I'll try again when I get home. See if Windows 7 might not like it better.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Running Windows 7 here and the second icon worked fine for me, didn't try the first.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Huh... "The file contains no icons." I know it does, because IrfanView will open it, but Windows XP refuses to load either icon file. I'll try again when I get home. See if Windows 7 might not like it better.
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Same here. So it fails on Windows XP but works on Windows 7. Surprising, but not problematic.|
Originally Posted by Shadow State
Running Windows 7 here and the second icon worked fine for me, didn't try the first.
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Thank you, Johnstone, for the icon. I'll be using this from now on. Finally, a non-jaggy Launcher icon!
*edit*
Neat, id'n it?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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That's quite strange, since Microangelo specifically calls it an XP-sized icon. Odd that it wouldn't work. Then again, I'm using Vista.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Same here. So it fails on Windows XP but works on Windows 7. Surprising, but not problematic.
Thank you, Johnstone, for the icon. I'll be using this from now on. Finally, a non-jaggy Launcher icon! |
And you're welcome, glad to be of service.
@Johnstone & @Johnstone 2
ediblePoly.com
All my characters
This will be a pretty simple suggestion. I run my PC at a 1920x1080 desktop resolution, and I've made both my Windows text and my desktop icons larger than normal so as to make use of the large floor space. As a result, a great many shortcut icons are displaying jaggies and pixelisation, which makes them look pretty bad and makes the software in question look more outdated than it really is.
This doesn't have to be the case, really. I have a number of applications that come with pretty high-resolution desktop icons, and the difference is pretty clear. Portal 2, for instance, is crisp and sharp, and on my desktop it sits right next to the jagged, nasty icon of the PlayNC launcher. I can't imagine that having a desktop icon that's at least a little larger would be that big of a problem to add to the Launcher, or that it would constitute much of any resource drain on any local machine.
Yeah, it's minor, but little things like that add up to form the larger sense of presentation. The Launcher itself has been a pretty solid piece of kit, so its icon ought to look the part, as well.
*edit*
In fact, here's an example cutout from my desktop, not resized in any way:
You'll note that most icons look decent. The only pixellated ones are Steam (one wonders why, but that's besides the point), MineCraft (obviously) and the PlayNC Launcher. Even Mids' Hero and Villain Designer has an icon that's high-res enough to show up crisp.