Suggestion: Improve Bitcoin Core icon on Windows #3886

The Bitcoin Core "bitcoin.ico" when displayed in 16x16 size is so bad.

This size is used to display the icon near the clock in the windows start bar.

The favicon.ico of the bitcoin.org website should be used instead, that icon is better.

Below you can compare them.

I dont know how to pull a commit for that, I am only reporting the problem. I am not sure but this script is the one generating the current icon: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/0a740650a52a21b7d82b43524017c87643af3224/share/qt/make_windows_icon.sh

git clone http://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin

did a find ./ -print | grep png

Not sure if this is all the resources that need to be touched .. but it is a start.

You need to fork a git repo for yourself and the make changes and then do a pull request.

I have made this overly simplistic but it isn't fantastically difficult if you follow the step that are well documented already.

./share/pixmaps/bitcoin32.png ./share/pixmaps/bitcoin128.png ./share/pixmaps/bitcoin256.png ./share/pixmaps/bitcoin16.png ./share/pixmaps/bitcoin64.png ./share/qt/img/reload.png ./contrib/macdeploy/background.png ./doc/bitcoin_logo_doxygen.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-026.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-015.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-030.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-016.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-029.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-007.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-008.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-019.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-031.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-010.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-017.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-004.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-006.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-012.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-018.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-020.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-013.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-014.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-025.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-032.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-033.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-034.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-021.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-024.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-028.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-005.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-023.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-022.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-011.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-002.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-027.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-001.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-003.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-009.png ./src/qt/res/movies/spinner-000.png ./src/qt/res/icons/clock2.png ./src/qt/res/icons/editcopy.png ./src/qt/res/icons/export.png ./src/qt/res/icons/connect2_16.png ./src/qt/res/icons/clock5.png ./src/qt/res/icons/overview.png ./src/qt/res/icons/toolbar_testnet.png ./src/qt/res/icons/connect4_16.png ./src/qt/res/icons/clock1.png ./src/qt/res/icons/editpaste.png ./src/qt/res/icons/connect1_16.png ./src/qt/res/icons/remove.png ./src/qt/res/icons/filesave.png ./src/qt/res/icons/tx_mined.png ./src/qt/res/icons/debugwindow.png ./src/qt/res/icons/history.png ./src/qt/res/icons/quit.png ./src/qt/res/icons/connect0_16.png ./src/qt/res/icons/bitcoin.png ./src/qt/res/icons/transaction0.png ./src/qt/res/icons/receive.png ./src/qt/res/icons/address-book.png ./src/qt/res/icons/toolbar.png ./src/qt/res/icons/send.png ./src/qt/res/icons/transaction2.png ./src/qt/res/icons/qrcode.png ./src/qt/res/icons/transaction_conflicted.png ./src/qt/res/icons/clock4.png ./src/qt/res/icons/clock3.png ./src/qt/res/icons/tx_inout.png ./src/qt/res/icons/tx_input.png ./src/qt/res/icons/lock_closed.png ./src/qt/res/icons/edit.png ./src/qt/res/icons/configure.png ./src/qt/res/icons/synced.png ./src/qt/res/icons/tx_output.png ./src/qt/res/icons/add.png ./src/qt/res/icons/key.png ./src/qt/res/icons/connect3_16.png ./src/qt/res/icons/bitcoin_testnet.png ./src/qt/res/icons/lock_open.png ./src/qt/res/images/splash.png ./src/qt/res/images/about.png ./src/qt/res/images/splash_testnet.png

The fuzziness is because Qt is doing the scaling. There is no explicit 16x16 variant anymore for the tray.

We used to have that in older releases, but then MacOSX came along and various Linux distributions with larger and larger icon sizes, necessitating a 256x256 window/tray icon.

It's actually possible to tell Qt to use different (custom) images for different sizes.

Feel free to fix this.

BTW: try using the 0.9.0rc3 (https://bitcoin.org/bin/0.9.0/test/) it already improves the icon a bit by no longer making the B transparent.

Fixed by #4678