IE 5 (favicon.ico)

[meikel]

Hi,

I'm just playing around with IE 5. It has a new feature to load an icon from a website which will be displayed in the URL line and the favorites menu. So I strongly recommend that everyone uploads an icon to his website.

The file that IE asks is favicon.ico (lower-case-letters). I'm not sure if it's enough to have one icon at the root level. I have an icon in every directory to make sure one gets loaded. It looks cool to have a custom icon in the favorites menu. It seems that IE only loads the icon if a page is added to the favorites.

Hope this helps everyone here http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Greetings from Bonn, Germany
[nbsp][nbsp]Meikel Weber
www.meikel.com (http://www.meikel.com)

[Charles Capps]

I never upload one on purpose - the more times it appears in your 404 logs, the more bookmarks you know you're getting. http://www.aota.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

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"Okay, so I'm not "SANE" so to speak, but uh... I'm the lovable kind of psycho"
http://solareclipse.net/

[Deb]

Any suggestions on a good (easy, no brainer, just for this reason, cheap/freetrial) program for ico files?

That's an area I've never really ventured into....

Deb

[Justin]

Well, being a programmer, making icons is important. I use MicroAngelo 98, which is awesome. It supports all different formats of icons / cursors (mouse pointers) and it's easy to use. I costs like $60 to register, but you can download a trial here:

https://www.impactsoft.com/muangelo/muangelo.html (http://https://www.impactsoft.com/muangelo/muangelo.html)

If you just want a simple icon, go to Paint Shop or something similar, make a 16 x 16 or 32 x 32 bitmap, save it as bitmap, and rename it to .ico - you won't get different sized icons in the file, but it can serve as a quick and dirty icon if needed http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

BTW, I was wondering what all those 404's were - I was thinking to myself "I never had any reference to an icon file" http://www.aota.net/ubb/biggrin.gif Now I know. Now I need to upload an icon http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif


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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Support

[Deb]

hmmm Terra says he thinks he has an old version of MicroAngelo I may have to dig it up...

Deb
psssttt don't bring up the fact that this thing will guarantee bigger log files... it could cause Terra to go into a deep depression and hide under da desk http://www.aota.net/ubb/wink.gif

[meikel]

Hi Deb,

for anything having to do with icons, I suggest, you go to www.shareware.com (http://www.shareware.com) and search for Icon.
You'll find libraries, librarians, editors, extractors, etc.

Meikel

[pqwabbit]

huh? so like lemme see if I understadn this- like ok someone goes to my site and say hmm this is kewl let me book mark it! so liek then IE like can grab and icon from the site? huh? what? what didi I miss - I dont use IE so liek im clueless

Lea

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Bunnies make life better.
Massachusetts House Rabbit Society, Inc.
http://www.MAHouseRabbit.org/

[meikel]

IE organized its bookmarks as a Win95 menu (similar to the start menu). If you have a custom icon (favicon.ico), you can control the icon displayed next to the sitename in that menu. It makes a real difference to not have the standard IE icon.

Meikel

[Mandi]

Do we just stick this icon in our www directory, the way .htaccess just lives there, minding its own business . . . ?

[Armand]

Okay decided to find out more about this so looked it up on MS site.

A copy in root level is all that seems to be needed. It may be placed else where if the html of a page indicates where to find the file i.e. <LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" href="/path/foo.ico">

For more info on the bookmark icon thing try: msdn.microsoft.com/msdn-online/workshop/essentials/versions/icpie5.asp (http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdn-online/workshop/essentials/versions/icpie5.asp) Info at bottom of page. Hope that helps someone else besides me.

I still need to upload my icon file which I made. Though I have no intention of upgrading yet so will have no idea how it works/looks I guess.

<edit>Just uploaded one, don't suppose someone with IE5 could check my site and bookmark it just to see it worked. www.arcanumcafe.com (http://www.arcanumcafe.com) </edit>

[This message has been edited by Armand (edited 04-07-99).]

[meikel]

Hi,

my IE5 doesn't load the icon from your site. I cross checked with my own site and found that you're using a wrong icon format.

When I open www.meikel.com/favicon.ico (http://www.meikel.com/favicon.ico) IE5 just displays the icon. When I open http://www.arcanumcafe.com/favicon.ico my IE5 opens the "Save as" dialog and saves a bitmap. Maybe you need to uplaod a real Icon and not a bitmap file with just the right extension.

Just post here when you've uploaded another icon and I'll check again http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Greetings from Bonn, Germany
[nbsp][nbsp]Meikel Weber
www.meikel.com (http://www.meikel.com)
FreeMem - Boost your RAM!

[Armand]

DOH!!! So much for Justin's suggestion of converting a bitmap then huh? http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif Weird part is that it works on my system for an icon. Huh. Guess I have to find a free icon maker program. Thanks Meikel!

[Armand]

After fighting with various "shareware" icon creating programs, I finally downloaded the eval on MicroAngelo 98... I LIKE IT!!! Nice program.

Back to a rant how can someone call it a shareware icon maker program and not allow saving unless registering and forking over money. Kind of defeats evaluation no? I can see wanting to make sure you make money of your shareware, but for christ's sake just put a time period thingie in there or something!!! Arrrghh. (Okay I'm alright I swear ...just wasted to much time on downloads today).

Anyways uploaded a real favicon.ico file this time so Meikel if you (or anyone else) could check, it would be highly appreciated.

Thanks...think I need more JAVA (coffee variety)!!!

[meikel]

Hi,

works now.

I made two screenshots of your icon so that you can see what's on now:
http://www.meikel.com/arcanum.gif
I just made the two shots into one graphics. Your main site and an extract out of my favorites menu. Both showing your icon http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Meikel

[This message has been edited by meikel (edited 04-08-99).]

[Armand]

THANKS!!!! Meikel you are awesome... I would have settled for "yes it's working" or "no it's not" but you are amazing and even provide graphical proof. Amazing! Thanks!

[Mandi]

Good Microangelo icon tutorial at:

www.stp.ndirect.co.uk/Tutorial/Create_Themes2.html (http://www.stp.ndirect.co.uk/Tutorial/Create_Themes2.html)

[Mandi]

Arrrrgggghhh! Could somebody please bookmark my site with IE5 and reassure me that the icon is working? www.cgspouses.net (http://www.cgspouses.net) I created one and bookmarked - icon worked great, but looked like *^%@ - so I redesigned, and uploaded, but my own local version of IE5 will NOT give up the old version; I have dumped every cached file I can think of. (To really irritate me, in my TIF's, the "right" icon was viewable . . . grrrrrr . . . . )

Correct Icon should look like this: http://www.cgspouses.net/favicon.gif

TIA . . .

[Charles Capps]

Worked fine here!

You might want to delete your bookmark and clear your shelliconcache file (unless you tried that already), then reboot and bookmark again... :-)

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"Okay, so I'm not "SANE" so to speak, but uh... I'm the lovable kind of psycho"
http://solareclipse.net/

[Mandi]

Charles - thanks a bunch! I am not finding my shelliconcache - didn't know I had one! I am a NS girl, through and through, and am performing the Rite of the Icon purely for my IE users . . . I hate how I fumble around in there, though!

Anyway . . . so long as it works as advertised . . . I'm happy!

[Deb]

That's the only reason I've not put an icon on the FutureQuest sites... I haven't been able to create one I really like yet and I hate to put one up that I know would change as soon as a decent one would show up...

Seems there should be a way, as there is with web pages, to force a refresh of the icon?

Deb

[meikel]

Hi Mandi,

looks correct here in germany http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Meikel

[Charles Capps]

"shelliconcache" is a file in your c:\windows\ directory... Hidden, of course. You'll need to enable the viewing of hidden files to see it. Delete it, that should force Windows to regenerate all icons from scratch. Be sure to have removed the bookmark first!

------------------
"Okay, so I'm not "SANE" so to speak, but uh... I'm the lovable kind of psycho"
http://solareclipse.net/

[meikel]

Hi Armand,

you're welcome. Now everybody knows what all this is about http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Greetings from someone being happy to sell FreeMem software
[nbsp][nbsp]Meikel Weber
www.meikel.com (http://www.meikel.com)

[Mandi]

Thanks again!

[Boksoft]

Check your 404 error stats to view the demand of the favicon.ico graphic.
I better start making one right now! <grin>