Custom icon mystery

Joined
Jun 18, 2008
Messages
12
TomTom Model(s)
TomTom GO 730 T
Does anyone know how to control the size and colors of custom icons?

I put a back button in my custom menu and I wanted it to have the same icon as the next-page button, only with the arrow pointing to the left. So, I made a screen dump, copied the icon, flipped it horizontally, and expected this to work. Little did I know...

First, I had to figure out that pure red (R=255, G=0, B=0) is interpreted as transparent. And then it turned out that the icon gets stretched and the colors messed up. (See attachment.)

Some sources claim that the image has to be 80x50 px, but that's not true. At a certain size the image won't be accepted anymore, but I haven't been able to establish the exact size. Also, it's claimed that *.bmp's have to be 8-bit -- again, that's not so: the icons of Calculator, MenuTT, TomTomInfo etc. are all 24-bit.

In one case I checked, the icon's original bmp-file is 63x44 and in the screen dump this gets stretched to 92x62. As you can see in the attached jpg, the color gradient of the next-page arrow gets messed up, obviously due to a color reduction.

Any ideas as to what is going on here and what to do about it?
 

Attachments

  • MessyIcon.jpg
    MessyIcon.jpg
    65.3 KB · Views: 497
Couple things:

1) How did you assign the new left arrow to your menu for a back button and what does your custom menu coding look like for this back button?
2) You may need to increase your color bit-depth before you save the image.
 
Are you using photoshop to create the icon?

if so....even though PhotoShop says the image is 8-bit, it will only save as 16-bit bmp until you change the image 'mode' to "Indexed Color" and set it to "Windows System" which then lets you save as an 8-bit bmp file.

this may or may not be your problem.....
 
(hope this ends up where it's supposed to...)

Re: birdman

Well, the beginning of the custom menu (which creates the menu page that's attached to my original post) looks like this:

MENUBLOCK|BLOCK_MAIN||
MENUPAGE|TASK_PAGE1|Main Menu 1 of 4|
MENUITEM|TASK_NAVIGATE_TO|
MENUITEM|TASK_MENU_FIND_ALTERNATIVES|
MENUITEM|TASK_DELETE_ROUTE|
MENUITEM|TASK_PAGE4|"back.bmp"|
MENUITEM|TASK_MENU_PREFERENCES|
MENUITEM|TASK_PAGE2|

(I tried using MENUITEM|TASK_PAGE4|"back.bmp"|| with a double vertical bar, but that doesn't make any difference. Using a title as in MENUITEM|TASK_PAGE4|"back.bmp"|"prev"| is pointless: it's ignored.)

And, no, I don't need to increase the color depth; it's a 24-bit true color bmp. Which seems to work fine for the icons of the other programs I mentioned, like MenuTT, Calculator, ttinfo etc. (Admittedly they don't use color gradients in their icons.)
back.bmp is simply a 80x50 clone of the next-page arrow (as it appears in a screen dump) flipped horizontally. Nothing else done to it. But it gets stretched and the colors are corrupted.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: flyer1024

I'm not using Photoshop but Micrografx Picture Publisher -- but that's not really the point:

a) You seem to work on the assumption that an 8-bit bmp is required. I don't think so: Most of TomTom's original menu icons sport some kind of color gradient. Can't see how they would do that in 8-bit with "Indexed Color" and "Windows System"-palette.

a) I looked at the icon files (of other programs) with a hex editor, they're all 24-bit. As is my back.bmp.
 
Re: birdman

Well, the beginning of the custom menu (which creates the menu page that's attached to my original post) looks like this:

MENUBLOCK|BLOCK_MAIN||
MENUPAGE|TASK_PAGE1|Main Menu 1 of 4|
MENUITEM|TASK_NAVIGATE_TO|
MENUITEM|TASK_MENU_FIND_ALTERNATIVES|
MENUITEM|TASK_DELETE_ROUTE|
MENUITEM|TASK_PAGE4|"back.bmp"|
MENUITEM|TASK_MENU_PREFERENCES|
MENUITEM|TASK_PAGE2|

(I tried using MENUITEM|TASK_PAGE4|"back.bmp"|| with a double vertical bar, but that doesn't make any difference. Using a title as in MENUITEM|TASK_PAGE4|"back.bmp"|"prev"| is pointless: it's ignored.)

And, no, I don't need to increase the color depth; it's a 24-bit true color bmp. Which seems to work fine for the icons of the other programs I mentioned, like MenuTT, Calculator, ttinfo etc. (Admittedly they don't use color gradients in their icons.)
back.bmp is simply a 80x50 clone of the next-page arrow (as it appears in a screen dump) flipped horizontally. Nothing else done to it. But it gets stretched and the colors are corrupted.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: flyer1024

I'm not using Photoshop but Micrografx Picture Publisher -- but that's not really the point:

a) You seem to work on the assumption that an 8-bit bmp is required. I don't think so: Most of TomTom's original menu icons sport some kind of color gradient. Can't see how they would do that in 8-bit with "Indexed Color" and "Windows System"-palette.

a) I looked at the icon files (of other programs) with a hex editor, they're all 24-bit. As is my back.bmp.



I just tried several things myself....I have no idea....I'll keep working on it!
 
Last edited:
Mea culpa:

Further experimentation reveals that, after all, an image size of about 80x50 px is the right size to avoid having your icons stretched. Presumably, it's also true that a color depth of 8 bit is all you can work with, if you don't want TomTom to mess with your colors. (My apologies to flyer1024!)

Still, the fact remains that TomTom's system icons use a greater color depth. It would certainly be nice if you could have your custom icons look as good. (sigh)
 
Last edited:
OK, I give up:

Looking through lots of stuff, mplayer in particular, I came to the conclusion that TomTom's native color depth is 16 bit, 5:6:5 (5 bits red, 6 bits green, 5 bits blue).

I managed to find a conversion tool with which to change my back button from 24 bits to 16 bits (and it was still looking pretty good afterwards) -- only to find out that my TomTom doesn't accept that format.

So, there. I simply can't see any way to make a decent looking icon for the back button. I'll just live with having the same icon as for next page, i.e. the arrow will be pointing the wrong way. I don't like it, but my head's already bloody from bashing it against this wall.
 
Do we really give up on creating a custom menu with "back" "done" "next" buttons in the bottom and leaving 6 Tomtom icons on the main screen, SipSip?
 
The reaction from TomTom

A couple of days ago I contacted TomTom's customer support with this email:

I've a suggestion for an improvement and a question:

A couple of weeks ago I bought a TomTom GO 730 with which I'm very happy. Since
then, I've been enjoying the fun part, i.e. customizing it.

Researching TomTom on the internet, I found that, just like me, everybody, who's
interested in a custom menu, primarily wants two things: a 'back' button and the
'Clear Route' item on the first menu page.

Which raises the question, why don't you set up your devices like this in the
first place?


And this brings me to my suggestion for an improvement:

a) Move the 'Clear Route' item up to the first menu page.

b) Don't waste a slot for a menu item on the 'next page' button, instead, you
should put three (real) buttons on the bottom of the menu page like so:

[prev] [done] [next]

In this fashion there would be 6 rather than 5 menu items per page, which
would reduce the number of pages to leaf through, and the whole menu would
be much more user friendly, even more so, if you could navigate it both ways.

(There'd probably be no more room for the BTM_GPS_POSITION, but I can't
see the point of it anyway.)


Now, my question has to do with custom menus, also:

For the 'back' button in my custom menu I would like to set an icon that looks
exactly like the 'next' button, only pointing the other way.

Believe me, I've tried dozens of different approaches, using BMP-24's, BMP-16's,
BMP-8's, 80x50, bigger, smaller, but there just seems to be no way in which you
can create a custom icon that looks the way you want it to. Always, the colors
and sizes get mangled in unpredictable ways.

Any help on this would be highly appreciated.

Thank you.

And this is the reply I received today:


Thank you for contacting TomTom Customer Support regarding your suggestion . We apologize for the delay in responding to your query. My name is Ken, and it is my goal to provide you with an exceptional customer experience!

Your feedback has been documented and will be reviewed by the customer support team. As far as to why the menus are not like that is because since the beginning and our first devices came out, this has been the way our menus were designed. I will tell you that all menus, however, were extensively tested for safety as well as user friendly ness.

Once again we would like to thank you for your feedback, since all our customers opinions matter!

If you have any further questions or comments, please e-mail or call us at 866-486-6866 Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM until 7:00 PM EST. Thanks again for writing. At TomTom we believe in showing you the way the easy way.

With Best Regards,

Ken,
TomTom Customer Support

What can I say...? Ken has certainly achieved his goal: this has been the most exceptional customer experience ever and I'm definitely not going to bother them ever again.
 
I bet Kenny never uses Tomtom device so he never really gets annoyance when dealing with the menu.
Means........ we're on our own, now tsk...tsk...tsk
 
Mea culpa:

Further experimentation reveals that, after all, an image size of about 80x50 px is the right size to avoid having your icons stretched. Presumably, it's also true that a color depth of 8 bit is all you can work with, if you don't want TomTom to mess with your colors. (My apologies to flyer1024!)

Still, the fact remains that TomTom's system icons use a greater color depth. It would certainly be nice if you could have your custom icons look as good. (sigh)

SipSip, do you still have the good working "back.bmp"?
If so, can I have it?
Thanks
 
Birdman, pianoCM, & SipSip

Do any of you have a better back arrow?
Birdman has the following image posted at his site
back_button.gif

I asked him how he created it and he told me "simply take a screen capture of the TomTom, use a paint program (such as Paint Shop Pro), cut a box around the arrow, reverse the arrow, and save it as a file."

I like SipSip have learned it is not that easy.
You can kind of tell what it will sort of look like in Paint Ship Pro if you do the following
Image, Decrease Color Depth, 256 color palette
Pick Standard/Web Safe

TomTom is apparently doing something like the (nearest color) option as shown by SipSip's example.

It is also strange that the TomTom also changes the pattern in it's rendered image (It's hard to get 100% exact)

I am done testing for now and here is what I was able to achieve
5mx24p.jpg


Here is the Bitmap I created for the back arrow zBack.bmp

Please Birdman share your icon as it looks like you have either mastered how to do this or that image was just a mock image and not from a device screenshot (in other words it's not possible).
 
I was working on this but stopped for 2 reasons
1. no matter how many way I tried to create to match with the original orange "next" arrow, I failed. 8-bit, 16-bit, 24-bit bmp, just failed to match. So I did create my own arrow, which I thought much easier since I did from scratch and NOT try to match with others. It certainly looked better (not compared to the original but to the modified ones) however I still didn't like it 'cuz it's lack of the soft feeling blending into the x30 orange theme. I've tried it on the Main Menu.
2. My intention to create this "back" button was for the "Change Preferences" since I don't want to loop through 8 pages (GO920) but I realized and understood that by doing so, I'd lost a few major icons/features. I can sacrify some in the Main Menu because I know that I can get it back this way or others but with "Change Preference" custom menu, I think I would lose for good therefore...... I've stopped looking into this.
 

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