Hello Everyone
shapeshifter - it is so frustrating to try to use a graphic program given the NON-intuitiveness to operate them. We have Paint Shop Pro 7 and PhotoPlus 5.5 and of course MS Paint. These three are extremely non-intuitive to use. Can you (or someone) change the digit color in the digit.png of the Flat_Clock skin of the tlbclock? We would like two new png's - one 0 0 255 and one 255 0 0.
Thank you - and tell us how you did it. By the way - where is the default skin file (to change the .ini)?:0
"Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime."
-- Ancient Chinese Proverb
Instead of doing it for you, I'll teach you how to do it yourself using Paint Shop Pro. This way you can change the colors to whatever color you like, whenever you like.
1. Open digits.png in PSP. Make sure you aren't using this skin at the moment.
2. In this case, you'll notice that it's black and white, and that those are the only two colors available to use. To fix this, we need to increase the color depth. Go to "Colors", then "Increase Color Depth" and click on "16 Million Colors (24 bit)".
3. We're going to be replacing colors, but first we want to pick the color we are going to replace. Select the color picker tool (the eye dropper, between the magic wand and the paint brush). Now right click on any part of the numbers in the digits.png file. This "grabs" the black color and stores it as your palette's alternate color. To verify this, look at the two colors at the top of your color palette toolbar (usually docked to the right of your window). The one on the right should be black.
4. Now click your primary color (the one on the left). This opens up a dialog box where you can select your new primary color. This will be the color of your digits when we are done. Once you pick a color, press "OK".
5. To do the replacing, select the color replacer tool. It's the one that looks like a box, red on the left half, blue on the right half, with a red arrow pointing into the blue half. It's usually between the clone brush and the retouch tool.
6. Open up your tool options palette window. Change the size to 16 (the height of the image), the step to 1, and the density to 100.
7. Now the fun part: click anywhere in the image. Notice how the old color is replaced by the new color everywhere you "paint", but the background is unaffected? To make this even easier, you can just double click the image, and ALL the old color will be replaced with the new. We're almost done now.
8. To save system resources, we're going to decrease the color depth. Go to "Colors", then "Decrease Color Depth" and click "16 Colors (4 bit)". (We're only using 2 colors, but the 2 color option is only black or white.)
9. Select "Optimized Octree" and "Nearest Color" and click "OK".
10. Now save this file, overwritting the previous.
Your new skin is ready to use!
Regarding the default.ini file: There isn't one. This information is hard coded into the plugin and can not be changed. You can, however, create a skin that looks just like the default skin and make changes to that.
shapeshifter Wrote:To make this even easier, you can just double click the image, and ALL the old color will be replaced with the new. Well I'll be damned. I've been working with PSP for a few years now, and I'm pretty #### good with it, but I never knew about that option, thanks! 
shapeshifter
WOWEEEEE KAZOWEEEEE! Err...ahem. We mean very nice; quite nice indeed.
It works 
Thank you so much for taking a major frustration away! (Frustration being how to use PSP).
ss
Just one more small thing - we have an icon with a white background but we want a transparent background. According to the help file in PSP we need to go to Selection>Modify>Transparency options but when we do everything in Modify is greyed out. How can we do this?
BTW - The last help was great.
Transparency in png files is a little tricker than with a gif or other similar formats because it uses layers instead of special colors. Here's the easiest way to remove the background that I've found:
1. Open the digits.png file in PSP. Again, if you are using the skin, PSP won't be able to save when you are done, so change to a different skin temporarily.
2. We'll work on the image in 24 bit color again. "Colors", "Increase Color Depth", "16 Million Colors (24 bit)".
3. Select the magic wand tool (between the freehand tool and eyedropper) and click the background color in the image.
4. Now we need to modify this selection. Go to "Selections", then "Modify" and click "Select Similar". This will select all the background pixels (even the ones between digits inside closed characters like 0 and 8 that might have been missed before).
5. Now go to "Selections" again, but this time click "Invert". This will select just the text.
6. Promote this selection to a full-fledged layer: "Selections", "Promote To Layer".
7. Clear the selection by clicking "Selections", then "Select None", or simply right clicking on the image.
8. Open the layer palette toolbar and right click the layer named "Background" and select "Delete". This will delete the special background layer (which is incapapble of png transparency) and leave you with just the text. The background should have a grey and white checkerboard pattern.
9. DO NOT DECREASE THE COLOR DEPTH. Only 24 bit or higher color depths are capable of this sort of transparency. Save as before.
Now when you select the skin from the plugin's properties dialog, the background should be gone from the digits. Enjoy.
ss
The file we meant was an .ico file that has a background we want to remove.
Sorry we did not specify.
Thank you.
Well, there's always the eraser you can use. Oh, and shapeshifter, excellent explanation, I just have one thing to add: instead of promoting the selection to a new layer, you could also double-click on the Background layer and click OK in the dialog. The name is not important, but in doing so it automatically converts the background layer to a true layer. Now you can simply select the background like you explained and press Delete...
Quote:Well, there's always the eraser you can use.
That would work as long as you do your double-click the background layer trick first. I've found that the magic wand and select similar combo is faster and easier in most cases, though.
Quote:Oh, and shapeshifter, excellent explanation, I just have one thing to add: instead of promoting the selection to a new layer, you could also double-click on the Background layer and click OK in the dialog. The name is not important, but in doing so it automatically converts the background layer to a true layer.
Well, tit for tat; We've both learned something new  Thanks, PsychoMark!
QSection: PSP7 is not capable of creating or editing icon (.ico) files. You will need a program like
Axialis Icon Workshop (my personal fav) to do that. However, the process in PSP is the same. You can create a png file in PSP, save it, then load that png file in IW to save it as an ico file. You don't have to use IW, obviously, just any program that can load a png and save an icon.
shapeshifter
We have Irfanview so the file can be changed to almost any format to manipulate and then changed back to an icon file. Any additional ideas? We also have Photo Plus 5.5 if that means anythiing.
Thank you.
Quote:We have Irfanview so the file can be changed to almost any format to manipulate and then changed back to an icon file. Any additional ideas?
Sure, change the icon into a png file with Irfanview, edit the png to remove the background in PSP and resave, then use Irfanview to change the png ack into an icon. I don't have Irfanview, but that should work.
Well we did do as per instructions but there is still a bit of some background surrounding the main foreground. What we are trying to accomplish is just as simple as a single letter. It is the letter "Q" in 0 0 207 color. The font is to be Twentieth Century MT Italic and in both regular and bold. The size is to be 36x39 and as an icon. Sounds simple, right? Can you tell us how to create a icon of just that single letter with no background? Or - which program do you think is the best for creating just a single letter icon?
Thank you again for your assistance.
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