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Personalizing your java.net project site - using icons for address bar and bookmarks
Posted by kirillcool on August 28, 2005 at 07:37 AM | Comments (5)
We are all familiar with custom icons for the webpages that we surf. These icons are shown in the address bar, in tab that shows the page (in Firefox) and in bookmarks. However, i haven't seen a single java.net community, blog or project page that features such an icon (save for the one in the comments :). The reason remains obscure, as all you have to do is a simple one-file upload to your CVS repository.
- Create a file named favicon.ico. It must be 16*16 pixels, preferably with transparent background to allow it blend nicely with custom themed browser. You can use an excellent IrfanView free tool to convert an existing JPG / GIF / PNG to ICO.
- Upload the favicon.ico to the www directory of your CVS repository.
- Browse to your main page or one of the sub-pages. You should see something like:
A few tips on creating icons:
- Don't use more than two letters (see ebay, cnn or imdb for negative examples).
- Don't use too many details (see battle.net for negative examples)
- Provide transparent background (see cnn for negative example).
- Make it simple (see jroller, amazon or google for positive examples).
The last thing - did you know that aliens really exist? :)
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Comments
Comments are listed in date ascending order (oldest first) | Post Comment
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Glazed Lists has had a favicon for 5 months, and although it was fun to do I'm not sure whether it has really benefited the project!
As ususal, the Wikipedia article on Favicon is fantastic. It mentions that PNG and GIF are also acceptable file formats.
Posted by: jessewilson on August 28, 2005 at 12:07 PM
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Jesse,
Yesterday i have stumbled upon a page with animated gif as a favicon, and it was very annoying, having animation on both address bar and tab. I prefer sticking with ico file.
Posted by: kirillcool on August 28, 2005 at 12:37 PM
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There is actually another reason to use the ICO format: it allows for different image sizes. See http://www.bmw.com/favicon.ico as an example, although they got the background wrong. Admittably I don't really know where the 32x32 size is used with a favicon -- the desktop would be a good chance, but at least Windows seems to use the standard HTML icon for that. Maybe KDE or Aqua are smarter. IrfanView can display the different sizes, I never tried to use it to create such an ICO file (not really my job -- I just deploy them now and then :-) ).
Posted by: peterbecker on August 28, 2005 at 11:10 PM
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Works in Firefox. Doesn't seem to work in IE.
Any clues anyone?
Posted by: grlea on September 08, 2005 at 09:10 PM
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Why would anyone use IE?! ;-)
Posted by: evickroy on September 09, 2005 at 09:40 PM
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