The Icon Builder program currently reads a text file that contains the chaincode needed to draw the glow mask around the perimeter of the RGB image in the middle of the icon. Once I have the glow mask I then import it into Photoshop to apply the blur effect which is a gaussian blur. But in order for the process to be automated the blur effect and generating the chaincode to describe the perimeter of the image all needs to be part of the program. With that in mind over the weekend I started writing Detect_Contour which is a function to read the pixel data of the RGB image to detect the perimeter of the image. It stored the information in a chaincode struct that is used in another part of the program to draw the glow mask. The first time I tested the function this weekend it failed miserably! It caused AROS to lock up and restart. I set up two for loops x & y using width & height to find the control point nearest the top left of the image that part worked. Below that I used a while loop to detect all the perimeter pixels all the way around till it arrives at the control point again. But there was a problem. I had a while loop that was like this: while (dx != Control_x && dy != Control_y). It will run the loop until we get back to the start point. But I didn't finish writing the code to do that so the whole loop ran continuously till AROS ran out of memory. So I changed it to a for loop that loops 200 times to collect all the perimeter pixels. 46x46x46x46=184 so that should work. I wasn't sure how to proceed with Detect_Contour but I assume I can use search patterns like I did with Write_Glow_Mask that reads the chaincode. The search patterns use x, y coordinates with Cartesian notation such as x+=1, y+=1 to describe pixel locations related to the current pixel. Anyhow here I have attached my programming notes for Detect_Contour.

AMIGASYSTEM, Thank you for the very nice looking app logo for Icon Builder! It's one of the joys of working on the program every time I see the logo. It reminds me of the casino game "Huff-n-Puff". AROS One used custom icons and for that the neon glow effect from Icon Editor would be sufficient because all the icons match. But when someone is running an AROS distro that uses all icons in the style of Ken's v4 icons and they want to make new icons that match the old ones it isn't sufficient. My program will add drop shadows and glow borders that perfectly match Ken's icons. So the icons all match.

@retrofaza Miker's Icon Tools may be exceptional in terms of quality, but currently on AROS 32 and now also on 64-bit, you can add a luminous border, resize images/icons or add other effects easily with IconEditor. I am attaching one of my old videos. https://youtu.be/kVrmM0NU1NI

Thanks retrofaza! Icon Drop may be the program for that. It will be an easy way for people who aren't graphic artists to produce nice looking icons in the style of Ken's v4 icons. If you port a game or write a demo or a program and you need an app icon you would need a way to make one. If you're just good enough with a paint program to paint a nice looking ARGB image and save a PNG what's the next step? How to add a drop shadow? Or a glow border? That's when an icon program can do that all for you.

I've recently been making some icons in the style of Ken Lester, and a little programme that would add a perfectly matching glow effect would be really useful. I'm rooting for it! :)

While doing AROS programming in the past I would work on several projects at a time. I would spend a little bit developing each project, making some advancement and adding new features then more on to the next project. But I never really finished a project so that I could release it and post it for others. This time around I will focus on spending as much time as needed on one project at a time to develop it as far as possible then release it. Then I will work on another project. So I will be working on Icon Builder for a while, maybe for the next few months to add some new features. The next project after that I will work on Icon Drop to add all the new features that I'm developing for Icon. Builder which is my test program at this point. Icon Drop will have a few buttons, two display areas and a menu system. All the buttons in Icon Builder will be just one menu item. That will be "Add Glow Border". The first four menu items for Icon Drop will include that and "Add Drop Shadow", "Adjust Brightness" and "Change Glow Tint". Icon Builder is the test program but Icon Drop will be updated and released in a few months as a full featured program.

Great Miker(y)

Icon Builder is progressing. You have to zoom in to see the glow borders. The image of def_Picture on the left has the original glow border. It's more yellow-ish. The image in the middle has a glow border produced by the blur effect in Photoshop. And the image on the right has a glow border that I produced without using Photoshop. It seems nearly identical to the glow border from Photoshop. It's perfectly ok that the 'modern' glow border has a slight orange tinge to it and the older one is more yellow-ish. It's easier to decide which one is the result of new glow masks. Also, over the weekend I fixed a display issue that involved dragging and dropping images with 32 bit glow borders with varying alpha values. I developed a formula for alpha blending for alpha blending the black pixels in the drop shadows with the background color (153,153,153) but I didn't allow for the colored pixels with alpha values. So I developed a new formula as such. It involves float variables. In this case bgvalue is 153. Color is the pixel element . Alpha is the alpha value of the pixel we are blending. We have to blend each R,G,B pixel element separately. The alpha blend function returns each integer value one each for red, green and blue. The formula I used is: float a = ((float)alpha/255.0f); float value = (float)(Color*a) + (float)(bgvalue*(1-a); int newcolor = (round) value; The pixels on an AROS RTG window rasterport are RGB colors which have been alpha blended with the background color. Reading a 32 bit glow image from the rasterport is more difficult. But if you know the HSL values for the glow border it's easier to decide which pixels have alpha values. But in that case a new formula is needed to reverse the alpha blending before saving the rasterport data to file.

@retrofaza, Thanks, I appreciate it! NathanH

@amigamia, Great idea! Thanks for your help. NathanH

I created a new forum just for this. I am sure it'll serve well in the future: Applications Feedback Post in there and let me know if you have problems. I have enabled also polls for other members.

I think the Public Announcements forum would be the right place to present the program. I'll be happy to download it, test it, and share my comments

Hi, I publish a few programs that are on AROS Archives and Aminet. I state my e-mail address in the "About" menu item hoping to receive feedback but have only received 3 or 4 messages lifetime. Is it appropriate to post requests for feedback on this site per program, what forum should I post it in, and do you think that would result in more feedback? I.e., I'm looking for bugs people find, features they'd like to see added, or why/why not they use it if they've tried it. Not looking for stuff like "it sucks". Thanks. NathanH

Yes, the address is a free one. I made a mistake when writing it down. That's the correct one.

The first link is different than the second one you posted. One with www. which shows an expired certificate [url]http://www.tinyarosdistro.flazio.com/[/url] This one shows a different certificate but it's valid. [url]https://tinyarosdistro.flazio.com/home?r=996572[/url]

I see this https://tinyarosdistro.flazio.com/home?r=996572

Amiwell, Your website certificate is invalid. Seems to have expired but the name doesn't seem to match either: [img]https://www.arosworld.org/infusions/forum/attachments/screenshot_2026-02-07_at_101501am.png[/img] [img]https://www.arosworld.org/infusions/forum/attachments/screenshot_2026-02-07_at_101437am.png[/img]

TinyAros X86_64 with U3 updated https://tinyarosdistro.flazio.com/home?r=996572

In the new version of VintageSongPlayer posted on ArosArchive, a right-click menu has been added. With Emuv0, the right-click menu generates a Guru. VintageSongPlayer had another problem: it is not possible to move the player to another position on Wanderer with the mouse.

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