Thunderbird System Tray Icon

[bug67]

Hello,

I have and add-on for Thunderbird called Minimize to Tray Plus. Anyhow, it puts a Thunderbird icon in my system tray that, to put it mildly, looks like crap. Can someone tell me if it is possible to customize this icon to one of my choosing? In fact, most of the 3rd party icons that run in the system tray could use a serious makeover. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[richc46]

Not sure how to cumtomize, but you can change when it appears
Works for Vista and Seven
Notification Icons - Customize - Vista Forums

 

[Gene Young]

I believe that if you shut down TBird completely then change the icon for the program in the normal manner (Rt click, properties, change icon) it should carry over when you restart. Haven't tried it yet as i don't mind the default icon.

 

[bug67]

Not sure how to cumtomize, but you can change when it appears
Works for Vista and Seven
Notification Icons - Customize - Vista Forums

Naw, I want to physically change the appearance of the icon.

I believe that if you shut down TBird completely then change the icon for the program in the normal manner (Rt click, properties, change icon) it should carry over when you restart. Haven't tried it yet as i don't mind the default icon.

Yeah, I now how to change icons in the Taskbar and elsewhere, I want to change System Tray icons.

 

[SledgeDG]

Windows uses the icon which is provided inside the program
So your best bet would be to change the icon inside Thunderbird.exe itself.
That's a fairly straightforward process with Res Hacker.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73191-icons-change-using-resource-hacker.html
If you run into probs, just gimme a buzz.
Or if you have an icon ready, post it here and I squeeze it in for you

Perhaps one of these:
Thunderbird icon - Google Search

-DG

 

[bug67]

SledgeDG,

There is not a Thunderbird icon in the imagesres.dll for me to swap out.

If the system tray notification icons use the default program icons, I know how to change the default program icon. Right click > properties. If I am to hack the .dll via ResHack, doesn't there have to be an original image for me to replace?

I don't mind the default T-bird icon. But I want the one that shows up in the system tray to look like it belongs there. Referring to my attached image above, see how pixelated the T-bird icon is next to the system icons? Is it because T-bird is a 32 bit program running on a 64 bit system?

It's not just Thunderbird. The Pidgin IM icons are pixelated when they're in the system tray as well. ALL non-Windows icons that show up there look like crap.

I'm not afraid of tweaking things, I just need to know how

 

[SledgeDG]

You misunderstood me. Of course there is no thunderbird icon in imagesres.dll. Those icons are usually inside the respective EXE files. So you would open the Thunderbird.exe in Reshacker, go down to Icon Group, check which one holds the icon, you want to replace, right click on the group and click Replace resource.
Load the replacement icon, pick the original on the right and click replace.
Once you replaced all you intended to... save, close reshacker and enjoy
Why those icons are so pixelated, I can not say...perhaps one or more dimensions in the .ico file itself are missing .

-DG

 

[bug67]

Ahh, OK. I'll play around a little and get back.

 

[dryphi]

Hey did you ever figure this out?
I am having the same problem with all non-windows icons looking like crap in the tray.

Is there a way to force it to take a higher-resolution icon for the system tray (ie 24x24 instead of 16x16)? Did you figure out of there was something wrong with your icons?

 

[SledgeDG]

you can't upsample icons like that and expect them to look good
You have to use a program like IcoFX and CREATE the correct formats (esp. the 256 true color +Alpha channel)

-DG

 

[dryphi]

You have to use a program like IcoFX and CREATE the correct formats (esp. the 256 true color +Alpha channel)
-DG

Well of course. I have IcoFX and my icons have the 256x256, 48x48, 32x32, 24x24, 16x16, etc res icons in them in 32-bit color as well as 8-bit and whatever else.

However Windows, in it's infinite wisdom, takes a 16x16 res icon and upscales it - to I don't know, 18x18 or something (as a previous post mentioned) - and as a result it looks like crap. I'm wondering if there's a setting somewhere, maybe in the registry or a dll file, that would allow a user to force Windows to use 24x24 icons in the system tray. Or even force it to use 18x18 so there's no scaling involved (as you can make icons of custom resolution with IcoFX).