* 2021 Converted Icons

[ELM]

I have downloaded these icons from the FHUG download page. Put them in the icon folder as per instructions. But find the icons have a white background. What have I done wrong or omitted to do?
With the .bmp icons the top left pixel set the colour to invisible but does the same apply to the emf icons.

[tatewise]

I don't think you have done anything wrong. Many of those .emf Icons have coloured backgrounds like the .bmp they are derived from and it seems the ones with white backgrounds have not retained the 'transparency' feature.
Perhaps use the FHUG KB Contact Form to request those ones are adjusted. It must be possible because many of the .emf Icons supplied by FH have 'transparent' backgrounds.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Best hope the author who created them sees this post. Or that somebody volunteers to convert them.

[tatewise]

Will the KB 'Contact Form' reach the author?

[ColeValleyGirl]

If we have the author on record, yes, but a lot of the content is very old and the author is unknown/uncontactable.

These icons were converted from very old content that already had the same white background, and just replicated the old content in the new emf format.

To remove the background, somebody is going to have to go through and modify the old icons and then convert them to emf. I have alerted the person who did the conversion, but would not blame them if they felt it too much work to take on to fix a problem introduced 5 years ago or more and not raised at the time.

[tatewise]

Sorry, Helen but you are mistaken. The original .bmp icons DO have transparent backgrounds. It is the recent conversion to .emf that has not propagated the transparency but substituted solid white. The .bmp Icon convention is that the top-left pixel identifies the transparency colour. I thought that was all made very clear by the OP.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Screenshot 2021-03-31 171035.png (6.45 KiB) Viewed 3490 times

Background looks white to me, but I don't do graphics so maybe I'm wrong and "I thought that was all made very clear by the OP." doesn't help me in the least.

Anyway, the point stands -- either the person who did the conversions has to be willing to redo them, or somebody else needs to take the job on.

[ELM]

It looks white but is should be transparent! That is showing the colour of the background.

[ColeValleyGirl]

The back ground I viewed the bmp on is blue, not white (as you can see at the edges). (The screenshot is a png but the image I was viewing was bmp). Somebody who actually does stuff with graphics needs to sort the images out.

[tatewise]

Looks transparent in a Diagram Icon when using LastWill.bmp which is what the OP is using but as LastWill.emf.
I think you have chosen a different icon Will England.bmp which does have a white background.

LastWill.png (15.68 KiB) Viewed 3466 times

[ColeValleyGirl]

Thank you, Mike -- I didn't think I was going mad.

[GJKent]

I find it very disappointing that voluntary work done (in some cases) 15 years ago, is now facing such criticism! Some of the Icons were provided back in 2006, but only a few of them by myself.

As has been said, the icons in question were converted from the original .bmp icons into .emf using an on-line tool over which there is / was no control of transparency etc.

I do not believe that there is any value in trying to repair those contained in the "2021 Converted Icons" as many icons are available for free on a variety of websites.

Might I suggest that, if you are not happy with the Icons contained within fH7 or on the FHUG, you do a search on Google for "Icons emf xxxx" where xxxx is the specific name for the one you want. If you are then sucessful, why not upload them yourself ???

[tatewise]

Sorry, but where did anybody criticise the original .bmp icons?
The discussion has been about the recent conversion to .emf icons without knowing the intricacies of how that was done.
This is the first time it has been explained that an automatic online tool was used.
It seems perfectly reasonable to ask what the situation is and whether there is an easy solution.
I suspect this may be a recurring topic for users upgrading from FH V6 with .bmp icons to FH V7 with .emf icons.

[GJKent]

What is reasonable to you, Mike, is not reasonable to other people.

If you want to carry out any further work on the icons, please feel free. I, for one, will not do so as I did not create them in the first place.

[tatewise]

I am gobsmacked!
You now seem to be saying that the OP was unreasonable in having the temerity to ask the question

It seems that lockdown is making every one tetchy.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Let's take a step back.

Some not all of the icons in bmp format were created with transparency but I am not aware of any issues being raised at the time.

Graham generously took the time to convert the bmp icons to emf using an automated tool. In the process more of the icons lost transparent backgrounds.

Any work to create consistent transparent backgrounds will have to start with the original icons (or will it? Perhaps somebody with the appropriate skill set will know.) Graham does not intend to carry out the work so we need another volunteer… either to convert the existing icons or to assemble a new collection.

It was helpful of ELM to surface the issue. In the absence of a quick solution the best option seems to be to search for better icons on the Internet! (if none of the existing emfs are suitable).

A warning on the icon set might be helpful as well.

[Jane]

Just to clarify.

Bitmaps as used in FH of any date will take the "transparency" from the top left pixel of the bitmap. Windows BMP files do not natively contain transparency.

So any tool which converts BMP files to EMF will include the backgrounds as they are set in the file. So to get rid of the backgrounds will probably need manual adjustment, converting to png or similar deleting the background to create the transparency and then converting to emf.

For example the number icons provided in FH were actually redrawn in Inkscape rather than being converted.

If you use EMF files FH 7 will assume the transparency is already included so will not try and replace any colours. You can still use Bitmap files in FH 7, so if you have problems with the converted items using the old BMP ones will still work.