* Adding polish to your Web site with favorite icons
I was recently asked about this topic by a reader and I thought that not only might many of you be wondering how to do this on your own Web sites, many more of you who don’t want to do it might just be curious as to how it is actually done. The “it” I’m referring to are favorite icons – those miniature icons that appear in browser address bars and favorites lists next to the URL.
First, you need to create a 16-by-16 pixel image in Windows icon format using an editor such as the one that comes with Microsoft Visual Studio or any of the many commercial products such as Iconomaker, which is available in both free and paid for ($29.95) versions.
Once you have an icon file, there are two ways to make the icon ready for Web content:
1. Put the icon in the Web server root named favicon.ico.
2. Name the icon file anything you like and store it anywhere you please and include the following in the Web page
section:The second method allows you to change the icon for each page should you find a reason to do so.
To make it even easier to create a favicon you can use, for free, the On-Line Icon Generator, a neat Web-based editor written in Java that will e-mail you an icon you create.
There’s also “FavIcon from Pics”, a service that allows you to upload an image which the site then scales to icon size and makes it available as a download. An optional feature is to create an animated icon, which simply scrolls the graphic several times. The site also provides a number of test facilities to ensure that your icon works.
Sure, favorite icons are not critical in proving your company is professional and understands the Web but all the same they do add a little polish.
