Icons for windows...

Icons for windows...

[Larry Smith]

I have a bug report requesting that all windows have
appropriate icons added to them so they can be seen
as what they are when iconized.

This turns out not to be so obvious to me.  I've spent
the last day or so studying the wm command in all its
myriad permutations and I see no reasonable way to do
this.  wm iconbitmap . <foo> requires a bitmap, and not
only do we not have any bitmaps of the likely icons at
handy (they are gif files in images/) but even if we did,
they would be limited to two colors, which seems rather
unsatisfactory.

I took a look at creating a gif image on a canvas and
using wm iconwindow . <pathname>, but this only works
for wm's that actually bother to create an icon - wm's
like kwm like to scale the window icon for use in things
like the open window menu or the taskbar, and that seems
not to work well.

Anyone have any ideas for a more satisfactory solution
to this?  I'd hate to waste too much time on it (or to
spend much time creating bitmap icons) since it's not a
major feature, but I don't like to walk away from the
idea, it's a worthwhile idea.

-- 
 .-.    .-. .---. .---. .-..-. | "Bill Gates is just a monocle
 | |__ / | \| |-< | |-<  >  /  | and a Persian Cat away from
 `----'`-^-'`-'`-'`-'`-' `-'   | being one of the bad guys in a
       My opinions only.       | James Bond movie." -- D Miller

Re: Icons for windows...

[Jim Ingham]

Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Larry,

For now, I think that you have to use the "winico" extension.  There is =
some discussion on the Tcl Core mailing list about incorporating that =
functionality into the wm command, and how to do this, etc...  But for =
now, if you want to get icons into the Windows start bar, you need to =
use winico.  BTW, I have never used it, so I don't know how good it is, =
but it seems to get a lot of use in the community, and people seem =
generally happy with it.

Jim

On Tuesday, November 14, 2000, at 12:12 PM, =
insight-digest-help@sources.redhat.com wrote:

> From: Larry Smith <larry@smith-house.org>
> Date: Mon Nov 13, 2000  12:55:21 PM US/Pacific
> To: insight@sources.redhat.com
> Subject: Icons for windows...
> Reply-To: lsmith@redhat.com
>=20
>=20
> I have a bug report requesting that all windows have
> appropriate icons added to them so they can be seen
> as what they are when iconized.
>=20
> This turns out not to be so obvious to me.  I've spent
> the last day or so studying the wm command in all its
> myriad permutations and I see no reasonable way to do
> this.  wm iconbitmap . <foo> requires a bitmap, and not
> only do we not have any bitmaps of the likely icons at
> handy (they are gif files in images/) but even if we did,
> they would be limited to two colors, which seems rather
> unsatisfactory.
>=20
> I took a look at creating a gif image on a canvas and
> using wm iconwindow . <pathname>, but this only works
> for wm's that actually bother to create an icon - wm's
> like kwm like to scale the window icon for use in things
> like the open window menu or the taskbar, and that seems
> not to work well.
>=20
> Anyone have any ideas for a more satisfactory solution
> to this?  I'd hate to waste too much time on it (or to
> spend much time creating bitmap icons) since it's not a
> major feature, but I don't like to walk away from the
> idea, it's a worthwhile idea.

--
Jim Ingham                                   jingham@apple.com
Developer Tools - gdb
Apple Computer

Re: Icons for windows...

[Larry Smith]

Jim Ingham wrote:

> For now, I think that you have to use the "winico" extension.  There is =
> some discussion on the Tcl Core mailing list about incorporating that =
> functionality into the wm command, and how to do this, etc...  But for =
> now, if you want to get icons into the Windows start bar, you need to =
> use winico.  BTW, I have never used it, so I don't know how good it is, =
> but it seems to get a lot of use in the community, and people seem =
> generally happy with it.

Urm...I think there is a miscommunication somewhere.
As I understand the bug report, most gdb windows are
not given any sort of icon to display when iconized,
even on Unix.  Of course, different systems use the
icon differently, but I can't seem to define a full-
color icon (a gif is what I have to work with) as the
icon for a given window in a generic and portable
fashion.  It's not just a windows issue.

I'm not familar with winico, but it doesn't sound
like something that would help me in Linux.  Have
I missed something?


> > I have a bug report requesting that all windows have
> > appropriate icons added to them so they can be seen
> > as what they are when iconized.
> >=20
> > This turns out not to be so obvious to me.  I've spent
> > the last day or so studying the wm command in all its
> > myriad permutations and I see no reasonable way to do
> > this.  wm iconbitmap . <foo> requires a bitmap, and not
> > only do we not have any bitmaps of the likely icons at
> > handy (they are gif files in images/) but even if we did,
> > they would be limited to two colors, which seems rather
> > unsatisfactory.
> >=20
> > I took a look at creating a gif image on a canvas and
> > using wm iconwindow . <pathname>, but this only works
> > for wm's that actually bother to create an icon - wm's
> > like kwm like to scale the window icon for use in things
> > like the open window menu or the taskbar, and that seems
> > not to work well.
> >=20
> > Anyone have any ideas for a more satisfactory solution
> > to this?  I'd hate to waste too much time on it (or to
> > spend much time creating bitmap icons) since it's not a
> > major feature, but I don't like to walk away from the
> > idea, it's a worthwhile idea.

-- 
 .-.    .-. .---. .---. .-..-. | "Bill Gates is just a monocle
 | |__ / | \| |-< | |-<  >  /  | and a Persian Cat away from
 `----'`-^-'`-'`-'`-'`-' `-'   | being one of the bad guys in a
       My opinions only.       | James Bond movie." -- D Miller

Re: Icons for windows...

[Jim Ingham]

Larry,

On Tuesday, November 14, 2000, at 07:42 PM, Larry Smith wrote:

> Jim Ingham wrote:
> 
> > For now, I think that you have to use the "winico" extension.  There 
> is =
> > some discussion on the Tcl Core mailing list about incorporating that =
> > functionality into the wm command, and how to do this, etc...  But for =
> > now, if you want to get icons into the Windows start bar, you need to =
> > use winico.  BTW, I have never used it, so I don't know how good it 
> is, =
> > but it seems to get a lot of use in the community, and people seem =
> > generally happy with it.
> 
> Urm...I think there is a miscommunication somewhere.
> As I understand the bug report, most gdb windows are
> not given any sort of icon to display when iconized,
> even on Unix.  Of course, different systems use the
> icon differently, but I can't seem to define a full-
> color icon (a gif is what I have to work with) as the
> icon for a given window in a generic and portable
> fashion.  It's not just a windows issue.

There are two issues here, one getting bitmaps for icons to work on Unix, one on Windows.  

Tk supports setting the icon bitmaps on Unix.  So the only question is where are the bitmaps to use.  At some time in the past, there even were Icons for all the windows on Unix, and they worked - at least on WindowMaker.  Martin did that a while ago, and I don't remember where the icons where, etc...  But I do know that this used to work...

On Windows, you can't use the "wm iconbitmap/iconbitmask" - it currently doesn't do anything.  So if you also want to set the icons for iconified windows (in the Windows start bar) you will have to use an extension, and the only one I know of that does this is winico.

Hope this helps,

Jim

> 
> I'm not familar with winico, but it doesn't sound
> like something that would help me in Linux.  Have
> I missed something?
> 
> 
> > > I have a bug report requesting that all windows have
> > > appropriate icons added to them so they can be seen
> > > as what they are when iconized.
> > >=20
> > > This turns out not to be so obvious to me.  I've spent
> > > the last day or so studying the wm command in all its
> > > myriad permutations and I see no reasonable way to do
> > > this.  wm iconbitmap . <foo> requires a bitmap, and not
> > > only do we not have any bitmaps of the likely icons at
> > > handy (they are gif files in images/) but even if we did,
> > > they would be limited to two colors, which seems rather
> > > unsatisfactory.
> > >=20
> > > I took a look at creating a gif image on a canvas and
> > > using wm iconwindow . <pathname>, but this only works
> > > for wm's that actually bother to create an icon - wm's
> > > like kwm like to scale the window icon for use in things
> > > like the open window menu or the taskbar, and that seems
> > > not to work well.
> > >=20
> > > Anyone have any ideas for a more satisfactory solution
> > > to this?  I'd hate to waste too much time on it (or to
> > > spend much time creating bitmap icons) since it's not a
> > > major feature, but I don't like to walk away from the
> > > idea, it's a worthwhile idea.
> 
> -- 
>  .-.    .-. .---. .---. .-..-. | "Bill Gates is just a monocle
>  | |__ / | \| |-< | |-<  >  /  | and a Persian Cat away from
>  `----'`-^-'`-'`-'`-'`-' `-'   | being one of the bad guys in a
>        My opinions only.       | James Bond movie." -- D Miller

--
Jim Ingham                                   jingham@apple.com
Developer Tools - gdb
Apple Computer