CompFrame - IconDraw

QDT Icon Palette
IconDraw Page 1

QDT Icon Palette
IconDraw Page 2

Original QDT Icon Palette Sample


	QDT Component

Icon
Draw

One of the cool things with any desktop environment is the graphics. Whether a user has the talent for designing cool icons or would rather just 'borrow' some of the thousands of publicly available ones, the idea is to use icons to make the desktop both pleasing to look at and easier to get around in. The human mind is very graphically oriented in the way it processes data. Meaningful, pleasant, well placed icons have a major impact on the usability of a computer's desktop.

IconDraw is a utility that allows the QDT user to import icons from other sources (the QDT format is designed to reduce space usage and is therefore unique), to modify the imported icons, or to totally design new icons from scratch.

The IconDraw window consists of several sections.

command/format section - this is seen on the left. It allows the setting of icon size, running of icon file operations, and naming of the icon.
design window - this is the large window in the center where the user actually draws/designs the icon itself. In the image here, every square is equal to a pixel (a dot on the screen). The white squares with the dark center in this window represent transparent pixels. Any thing behind the icon will show through them.
real time icon display window - as the user designs the icon, its actual sized image is drawn in parallel in the upper right hand corner window.
color choice window - the window on the right (the colored blocks) allows the user to select the color used for both the left and right mouse buttons. In this image (256 color mode), half of the available colors are shown. The arrow in the window switches it to the other half of the colors. Just chosen colors are displayed just above this window for both mouse buttons.

QDT Icon 256 Color Palette

For the SMSQ/E hi-color mode, the original QDT icon palette was taken directly from the default 256 color palette supplied by SMSQ/E and the extended colors capability. The 256 versus 16 million color selection was chosen to save two bytes per pixel in stored icons. Unfortunately, when viewing the original palette if displayed from colors 0 to 254 (255 is reserved by QDT for transparency), the color spread is not ideal for drawing and the arrangement made it difficult to find related colors.

To fix this QDT's implementation now gives a wider range of colors outside the original 256 color palette but preserves the original byte per pixel size savings. The icons will continue to store the data using a 256 color palette. However, when drawing the icons, the palette will be remapped by QDT into the full 24 bit real color thru an internally stored QDT Icon Palette.

The color selection of the new palette is derived from what are known as the internet safe colors. This is simply a mapping of 216 colors from the standard 16 million using a 6 x 6 x 6 grid. By taking each of the three colors and changing them from 0 to 255, incrementing them by 51 each time, you get the 216 colors. You can see details at the website:

http://the-light.com/colclick.html

In addition to this set of standard colors, QDT includes a total of 25 shades of grey. The 216 original palette only includes 4 shades. It should be noted that not all SMSQ/E capable systems may display all the additional grey shades equally and some detail may be lost if the extra shades are used.

IconDraw breaks up the palette into two different windows. It loosely takes the standard cube method of displaying the palette (see above web page for details) and remaps it into the two individual square windows. Each section within a window will have a light grey divider line to help visually separate each color grouping.

The most common of the 216 palette are mapped into both pages on the left and upper edges, with the bulk and brighter colors on page 1 (see below). The 6 primary colors are duplicated on each page in the lower left hand edge. On page 1 in the lower middle vertical, the 216 palette based grey shades are available. The same grey shades plus the additional shades from the QDT icon palette are displayed in about the same area on page 2. The blank areas in the images shown here (lower right) are used by IconDraw for 'transparent' and for page switching. The remaining colors from the 216 internet safe palette are grouped in the remaining sections on both pages, approximately in the middle right areas.

Both pages of the new QDT Icon palette are displayed here. For a comparison, the original palette page 1 is displayed to the right of the two new pages.

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Most recent major revision: 28-Oct-2005