which prog would you recommend to create icons

[yesplease]

What is a good program to create icons? I am looking for maximum configurability: all sizes, all colors, transparency.

A related question is: can I make something in gimp and transform that in an icon?

Or, where can I find more info?

Thanks in advance.

[stuporglue]

Create them with SVG, they'll be scalable and you can do very very nice gradients, curves and transparencies.

SVG is a file format. There are several good SVG editors for Linux, my favorite is Inkscape. http://inkscape.org -- it's in apt though, so just use Synaptic to grab it.

[commodore]

I think raster icons are more beautiful than svg icons. If u want to make icons in raster graphics you can use GIMP.

Sodipodi is another good svg app:
http://www.sodipodi.com/

[yesplease]

Thanks Stuporglue and Commodore. I will have a look at SVG. (The problem is not to find a program, but that there are so many to choose from :) )

Edit: Here is something on icons http://wiki.inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Icons
(including http://jimmac.musichall.cz/icons.php with gnome and openoffice icons from the graphical desinger who made them)

SVG split off from Sodipodi, the manual of SVG is more complete at this moment.

I found that the difference is between bitmap or scalable vector, and that raster and SVG can be converted. SVG allows for resolution-independent icons.
See gimp2sodipodi and The Gimp on http://wiki.inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Tools See http://www.prepressure.com/image/bitmapvector.htm (hmm, I always thought that JPEG was scalable and based on vectors)

[gheorghe_pop]

nice to know that

[commodore]

Raster is not scalable graphics. The usual thing- jpeg, png, bmp or whatever.

[yesplease]

When I have made a picture that should be used as an icon, how do I convince the operating system that it is an icon and that it should take a particular action when the icon is clicked?

What should I read? Edit: there is some information in Gnome help in the Desktop section, under Installing Themes. From there you can get into detailed info in http://www.freedesktop.org/Standards/icon-theme-spec .

[kperkins]

Linux uses pngs or svgs for it's icons, unlike Windows which uses the ico format, so you don't really need to know much, except sizes (start at 16x16 and up to 128x128--I believe) :D, and how to name them, and where to put them (usually /usr/share/icons/ for sets of them.
This page might help:
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeArt_2fTutorials_2fIconThemes

[yesplease]

@ kperkins: You are right, I started searching for the linux way to make icons because in windows icons are complicated.

However, I think more structured information is found in http://www.freedesktop.org/Standards/icon-theme-spec .

[bvc]

This may have something useful for someone.
http://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=15515
I use Inkscape for everything but shadow. Gimp for that.

[kperkins]

Thanks for the links guys. Lots of reading to do. :):p

[dudus]

What abou if i want to create a favicon.ico so I can use it when people bookmark my site? I found that it may be 2 images one with 16x16px and 16 colors and the other with32x32 with 256colors, both in the same file (favicon.ico). How can I do that?

[MountainX]

What abou if i want to create a favicon.ico so I can use it when people bookmark my site? I found that it may be 2 images one with 16x16px and 16 colors and the other with32x32 with 256colors, both in the same file (favicon.ico). How can I do that?

same question here. I want to make .ico files that work on other platforms. How can I do this with Inkscape, etc.? I'm guessing I make all the icons and put them into a zip file and rename as .ico, but I really need to tutorial with details of the process. Thanks.