Resizing pinboard icons? Reducing further than 48x48.....

[Mike Walsh]

Morning, all.

I accept this may well have been asked at some point in the past, but I'm feeling lazy this morning, and can't be ar**d to search for it..!

So, I shall ask it here (probably again).

We all know that with the JWM/ROX-Filer/pinboard combo, the 'desktop' icons come out as 48x48 by default. I've discovered that you don't in fact, have to use a 48x48 pixel icon; I've successfully used 512x512 icons. JWM/ROX will automatically minimise these down, and the bigger and more detailed the original icon is, the sharper the detail on the 'pinboard' when ROX has reduced it.

My question is this:-

Is there a way to get ROX to auto-reduce these to a smaller size (by default)? Which part of the JWM/ROX scripts contains the necessary parameters for this.....and where would I find this?

Any info and/or advice will, as always, be much appreciated. I'm considering a total 'desktop' overhaul, and really need smaller icons to accomplish what I have in mind...


Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

What is it with everybody this morning?

I'm getting loads of suggestions by PM.....but nobody's replying to the actual thread..! I appreciate the replies (don't think I don't!), but I thought the idea was that replies come to the thread, in order that everybody can benefit.....

(*shrugs*)


Mike.

[MochiMoppel]

the bigger and more detailed the original icon is, the sharper the detail on the 'pinboard' when ROX has reduced it.

You reduce pixels and gain details? A miracle! Hallelujah!

Is there a way to get ROX to auto-reduce these to a smaller size (by default)?

No.

Which part of the JWM/ROX scripts contains the necessary parameters for this

There is none.

.....and where would I find this?

Nowhere.

really need smaller icons to accomplish what I have in mind...

Then why don't you use smaller icons? Or use/create a theme with smaller icons? Some of my icons are as small as 1px, i.e. they are invisible. There are 4 of them in the screenshot.

[Mike Walsh]

Morning, MM.

Mm. Okay, fair comment. Smaller icons may be the way to go, then. Now then, having said that, I have a question (and I don't know whether you'd be able to help with this).

What would be the best method for generating a small icon with good, sharp detail? PNG; SVG.....or BMP? Any ideas?

I've tried with both PNG and BMP in the GIMP, exporting as the changed format....and I'm hanged if I can see the difference. SVGs, I'm not certain how you work with these, I'll confess; in many years of graphic design, they're not something I've ever used before.....


Mike.

[MochiMoppel]

Morning, MM.

Good evening.

What would be the best method for generating a small icon with good, sharp detail? PNG; SVG.....or BMP? Any ideas?

SVG would be the wrong format (you can use it, but it's not made for this task and would require relatively large overhead), BMP is made for the task, but not widely used in Linux. Leaves only PNG and a few others. If you create a 16x16 icon, the file size or compression is not an issue. You can open the icon in mtPaint and change each pixel by hand, but I wonder if you ever need to do this. There is no shortage of icons in all sizes and for any purpose. And details? What kind of details do you expect?

[musher0]

Hi Mike Walsh.

I did a project similar to yours a few years ago (I have to find the
screenie).

Long story short, you can do it, but it gets involved.

First make a copy of all original theme icons at /usr/local/lib/X11/themes.

Then you have to create somewhere a 2nd set of icons of 32x32 pixels
instead of the default 48x48. It all comes down to your screen resolution
and depends a lot on readability. I remember that 28x28 icons were too
small and 38x38 were fine.

I did this experiment a few years ago. So maybe I will miss a few details.

Once you have created this second set of smaller icons, replace your
current Puppy theme with them. (You made a back-up, remember?)

Also squish the icons at /usr/local/lib/X11/pixmaps with your new icons.
(They must have the same name, too.)

The smaller icons should then be there at every reboot. You need two
copies, because you have to fool Puppy into thinking the icons are
original, otherwise it loads the default ("pristine") ones from its initrd.

Any more questions, please ask, I'll try to jog my memory a little more.

Oh. My moral of the story was: "Ain't worth the trouble." If you want to
gain space on your desktop, doing pixel reduction is the wrong route.

I realized that what I really wanted was less icons on my desktop, or
even a choice of themed pinboards so I could switch from one to the
other. Themed pinboards, as in "documents pinboard", or "multimedia
pinboard", "business apps pinboard", etc. (But that was me, then!)

I do not hope that this does not help you.

(I'm in paradox mode today!)

Break a leg!

[Mike Walsh]

Hiya, musher0.

Probably gonna generate more work than I wanted if I do it that way!

I don't run with standard icons at all. I use a totally custom set of icons, culled from Google over a number of years.....which, being the case, I don't quite know how I'd set them up in the first place..

It's hard being unique!


Mike.

[musher0]

Yeah, tell me about it!!!

Have you tried grouping these "unique" icons as a full theme and storing
the result in /usr/local/lib/X11/themes/Mike_Walsh?

(Careful with the file names: they have to match what Puppy can recognize.
It should be easy enough, though, if you use the same file names as those
in /usr/local/lib/X11/pixmaps.)

Then it may be as simple as (?; needs to be tested of course) switching to
the "Mike_Walsh" theme with the icon-switcher in the general menu (desktop
sub-menu).

Just a thought.

[Mike Walsh]

Mm. That might work, I suppose. Sounds like a plan.....I'll have a more 'in-depth' look when I get time.

(When I start digging around in the file-system to figure out what does what, and how it's triggered/called/whatever, I need to set aside a session to do just that..!)

I thought it might just be a case of a simple edit. How wrong can you be?

The very simplicity & ease of use of the JWM/ROX/pinboard combo tends to work against you, since it just doesn't have the controls and functionality in place to start with...


Mike.