Even more strange: Under OS 3.9 using the original icon.library v45.1 which can only display the planar images of these under AfA damaged and squeezed icons, which are not visible under OS4, it displays all of them like this:

AfA_OS has the bad habit to store some pointers directly in first pixels of the planar images. That's why you can always see some radom pattern at the top of these images.

Also AROS sees one side of corrupt icons

Thanks very much, that works perfectly!

Update to icon.library 46.4.455:

Added a new version SB020 which is based on LD020 and tries to achieve softer borders around the icon symbols. This new effect only works on gfx cards. The other versions have no changes except a small fix for bad coding style which was never a real problem. ;)

Don't use it on AmiKit X or it will kill the cat! :D

PeterK my cat did not die with SB020, in Italy it is said that the cat has seven lives :D

I installed SB020 with AFA OS i can have some benefit? anyway noticed improvements when i turned off AFA OS (right mouse button system start)

The 68020.png with MCP_prefs.info on the right shows the old borders, the SB020.png with MCP.info shows the softer borders.

Of course, AfA_OS_Libs:icon_lib.exe must be disabled to see what icon.library is doing.

And let you be warned, the cat will die sooner or later! :lol

Update to icon.library 46.4.456:

Reworked the new SB020 version again and fixed some small mistakes in the border detection code.

PeterK sorry just to understand better, the version "icon.library_LD020" is to be used on resolutions RTG while "icon.library_68020" per schermi PAL ?



Test "icon.library_LD020" on OS3.9 RTG 1024x768x32Bit UAE Zorro III

Hi AMIGASYSTEM,

there is no visible difference between the 68020 and the LD020 version, but maybe a little speed difference which depends on the design of your gfx card. On my WinUAE system the 68020 version runs a little faster.

LD020 and also SB020 are using my old line by line direct drawing method for the Read/WritePixelArray() calls. The advantage of transfering every image line separately instead of the whole image at once is that you can shorten these single lines even more than you can shrink the complete image rectangle by reducing it to the visible part without the surrounding background. So, you have to transfer less data to the gfx card and you don't need to allocate an extra buffer for editing the image. A single line fits onto the stack.

The disadvantage is that you need a pair of Read/WritePixelArray() calls for every line. I can't predict which method is faster, LD020 or 68020. It depends on the system.

Btw, why are you still using this ugly icon text with black background bars for the font? I would prefer to use ShodowIconText or OutlineIconText.

Thanks for the Info, the screenshot i did it on my old man OS 3.9 of mine A4000/060 deceased remained unchanged for so many years.

Added OutlineIconText in the startup-sequence (white text Ok, black text Outline not good)

I'm using ShadowIconText (black on white), but everybody has his likes and dislikes. It also depends on the background image. Thanks for the screenshot, but on a jpg image you will hardly ever see the soft borders. ;)

What do you think about the new SoftBorder feature in SB020? Is it usefull or do you see any drawbacks like less sharpness or speed as a reason not to use it? Attention, the cat in AmiKit X will lose her second life when you run 456! :D

Of course, 68020, LD020 and SB020 will work on all screens, not only on gfx cards. Just the new SoftBorder effect is limited to Hi/TrueColor screens, because it needs the cybergraphics.library functions Read/WritePixelArray() to make the borders 50 % transparent.

With SB020 i know a little improvement in focus, for speed, with JIT 060 the difference is imperceptible; after dozens of tests the cat has not died yet :sad , even if it does not use it no problem even for AFA OS (AFA OS without icon.library does not start)

My 1 kopeyka to the stats...

Real 060/BV 1024x768@16bit DOpus5
SB version is slightly slower then normal version (around 3%)
This also depends on the icon set tested, for some the difference is almost zero.

I have decided to keep the regular version on my system,
it benchmarked a few ms better then the LD version for my system icon set based on glow icons.

Also prefer the regular draw mode over soft border, later is nice addition, but really needs a different kind of icons or specially prepared icons to look awesome, since glow icons loose sharpness of some essential borders and meshed icons have even more trouble.

Thanks alot for your feedback, Michael.

That's exactly what I wanted to know. If not everybody prefers to use the new Soft Border feature it's better keep it in the separate SB020 version than to enable it by default.

But usually, you have to give your 2 cents ... :D

What is the LD020 again? Maybe a short description of the various variants should be on page 1 of this thread :)

LD020 stands for Line by Line Direct Drawing and SB020 is the Soft Border version as explained in post #2009 somewhere above on this page already.

Sorry if I may ask...
what are the prerequisites for having a transparent Icon title background? If I enable text shadowing I only get a shadow for the rectangle around the text.
I have OS3.1., latest icon.lib and WB.lib 152 (or whatever... Latest patch).

IconLib_46.4.readme:
... before you save the font settings.

Where did you get a patch for WB 45.152 ?

Great, I looked for that ... but overlooked, obviously.

Thanks you so much !!!

Oh, and sorry - I mixed up some libs/versions.

It's 136 for wb.lib.