Hello Everyone,
I am looking for a good resource for creating bitmaps that can be used within BUTTONBAR. I would like resource to allow me pull from picture then add text as necessary.
Also, can we images other than bitmap in BUTTONBAR?
Thank you in advance for your assistance.
Darrell
I use images from Icon Finder ..
You can search for most anything and download them in .png or .ico in various sizes. The trick is many of them are alpha blends ( layered ) and will need to be converted to .bmp if you just want to use FWH defaults. I am fairly certain you can use .png as external files if you use the FreeImage.dll that comes with FW .. I prefer to incorporate my icons, bitmaps into .res and compile them into a monolithic .Exe that way you do not have to distribute any images to support your application.
Uwe has mentioned many resources and tutorials using PixelFormer and you can search the forums for his suggestions.
http://www.qualibyte.com/pixelformer/
I prefer to use the free version of Gimp which you can use much like Photo Shop and take your .png's and re-layer\re-size them and save them into various formats including .bmp.
You can take your alpha blend .bmp and use them as resources ( at 24bit alpha blend integrated in your .exe ) or reference them as external files from disk at a full 32 bit.
Creating icons is very much an art and I suggest you search these forums for Uwe's tutorials. In the mean time .. take a look at Icon Finder for your image resource.
Rick Lipkin
Thank you Rick!
Darrell
Just like Rick i use Icon finder and download png files in various formats depending on my needs.
I use iconfinder to convert the image to bmp (import the png image, go to image properties , set the correct size) and export it to bmp as alpha if it is not alpha already
I prefer to distribute the images rather than keep them in a resource file, i have a subdirectory bmp in my application that contains all the images needed.
Hth
Richard
