How to make square icons on the desktop to customize size

[Nate Duong]

Dear friends,

I am trying to create icons on the desktop by customizing size, such as rectangle ( not square icon anymore),

would you like to help?

thank you,


Nate Duong,

 

[DaveC426913]

Can you be a little more specific? You are trying to create a new type of icon? A rectangular iocn?

 

[phinds]

What do you mean, make them square? Desktop icons ARE square. You can make and area in each side or an area in the top and bottom be transparent and the icon will LOOK rectangular but it really will still be square. You can't get away from that, at least if you are running Windows.

 

[rootone]

I think it's the same with all common OS.
If Icons were anything other than square then the OS would incur huge CPU overheads in making things fit on the screen nicely.
It's undesirable for an OS to be spending it's CPU cycles excessively on stuff that is essentially eye candy glitz.

 

[DaveC426913]

It's undesirable for an OS to be spending it's CPU cycles excessively on stuff that is essentially eye candy glitz.

AHAHAHA (oh, you weren't delivering that deadpan?)

A pity the folks at Microsoft don't think so. My screens, icons, buttons, controls, bells and whistles do fantastically acrobatic dancy, fady, rainbowy things day in and day out.

 

[rootone]

Well I liked the 'aero' theme, (the semi transparent one so you can see windows in the background behind other ones),
but I think that was more to do with making use of what most modern GPU is able for, not much extra load on the CPU or OS.

 

[Nate Duong]

What do you mean, make them square? Desktop icons ARE square. You can make and area in each side or an area in the top and bottom be transparent and the icon will LOOK rectangular but it really will still be square. You can't get away from that, at least if you are running Windows.

Dear phinds,

I am trying to create a new type of icon with rectangle size. I'm planning to create GUI (graphic user interface), like a button with rectangle size, and that button will hook up with batch file. Whenever i click that button (on the desktop), It will run batch.

Icon which I created on the desktop will be easy to run bat file, but I could not change into the rectangle size,

Please help me with ideals!

Thank you, phinds.

Best regards.

Nate Duong.

 

[phinds]

what operating system are you using? You seem to be saying that you think a button is a GUI. A button is just an icon and as has already been said, those are square in all known GUI operating systems. If you are planning on writing an entire GUI operating system, you have a LOT bigger problems than just the size of your icons.

 

[Nate Duong]

what operating system are you using? You seem to be saying that you think a button is a GUI. A button is just an icon and as has already been said, those are square in all known GUI operating systems. If you are planning on writing an entire GUI operating system, you have a LOT bigger problems than just the size of your icons.

window 7 and 8,
I've been thinking the GUI button , but there will need time to create it, and i do not know what kind of software should be to create that button quickly?

that is why I am trying to think simple way that is to resize icon on the desktop to rectangle.

 

[phinds]

window 7 and 8,
I've been thinking the GUI button , but there will need time to create it, and i do not know what kind of software should be to create that button quickly?

that is why I am trying to think simple way that is to resize icon on the desktop to rectangle.

You really have not been paying attention to what has already been said. You CANNOT get away from the fact that Windows uses square icons. This has already been explained to you. You can make it LOOK rectangular, as has ALSO already been explained to you in post #3. Please pay attention to what people are telling you.

And please quit asking the same question over and over. The answer is not going to change. Reread what has been said to you in this thread.

 

[jtbell]

Note: I've deleted some duplicate posts which were probably accidental.

 

[phinds]

Note: I've deleted some duplicate posts which were probably accidental.

Actually, I think he just cut/pasted the exact same response to a post of mine into a response to another from someone else, but yeah, it was confusing.

 

[.Scott]

window 7 and 8,
I've been thinking the GUI button , but there will need time to create it, and i do not know what kind of software should be to create that button quickly?

that is why I am trying to think simple way that is to resize icon on the desktop to rectangle.

You can use Microsoft Visual Studio to create and edit an icon file - with icons any shape that you want. You just have to make part of it transparent to change them from square. Or you can use an icon editor (google icon editor).

Once you have an icon file or files, you can right click most desktop shortcuts and then select "Properties". In the shortcut tab, you can select "Change Icon..." to select a new icon for the desktop shortcut you selected.

Hope this helps.

It's also possible you are looking for controls for icon font styles, icon horizontal and vertical spacing, etc - as you could do with Windows 7.
If you want to change the horizontal and vertical spacing of the icons, look and registry folder Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowsMetrics. You can't get away from basically square icons - but you can make the region allocated for each very rectangular.

 

[phinds]

You can use Microsoft Visual Studio to create and edit an icon file - with icons any shape that you want. You just have to make part of it transparent to change them from square.

No, as has already been explained, the icon is NOT anything other than square, it can just be made to LOOK other than square. The area in which Windows will recognize a click is still square.

 

[.Scott]

No, as has already been explained, the icon is NOT anything other than square, it can just be made to LOOK other than square. The area in which Windows will recognize a click is still square.

This is semantics.
I think most people that looked at a 32x32 icon with rounded transparent edges would not call the icon square. They would refer to is as round. Yes, the basic icon (not its appearance) must be 32x32 or some other "square" dimensions. But you can still have icons that appear rectangular, triangular, circular, etc.

Since the OP has not provided additional details on his purpose, I included the option of putting a rectangular image into a square icon. For all we know, that would suit his purposes.

I didn't include messing with the screen resolution because my guess is that that would not suit his purpose.

 

[.Scott]

The area in which Windows will recognize a click is still square.

I didn't catch this the first time. At least for Windows 7, the width of the "click" area includes the full region available to the title text. The height includes a margin above the icon and below the last line of text - so it can be different for different shortcuts.
This makes those "WindowsMetrics" parameters a potential solution to the requirements as outline by the OP.

 

[phinds]

You're right. The click area is not a square (necessarily). I misspoke. Thanks for that correction; good catch.