As an ArgoUML contributor I'm going to blog my activities here, so that they may draw interest by other developers or help other developers when doing tasks similar to what I've done. AND(!) the grand vision that makes an Argonaut what he is, TO THRIVE IN THE BIG DANGEROUS WORLD, TAKING THE Argo TO A GOOD SHORE ;-))

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Making icons for ArgoUML

This entry comes a lot after the fact, but, nevertheless, it contains important details on how to get good icons for the ArgoUML GUI.Thanks to Michiel van der Wulp for supporting me on this work with icons in specific and implementing the C++ Notation in general.By mid of 2006 I detected that the C++ notation wasn't working no more in the ArgoUML diagrams and created issue #2 in the C++ module issues DB.The whole Notation sub-system was refactored by Michiel and the C++ module had to adapt.So, to make a long story short, I needed to create an icon for the C++ notation as part of the work and what follows is a recipe on how to do it:

Note: these instructions are for Windows. If you're on Linux, you'll have to look elsewhere.

  1. Start from one of the icons stored in the Images directory of the source code.
  2. Using MS Paint, you'll draw the icon according to your artistic capabilities. For this you'll have easier time by using gigantic zoom like 800%.
  3. Then, use IrfanView to reduce the color depth to 4 colors and to set the transparent colour.

But, if you want to see the whole story of having Notation icons working from ArgoUML modules, you'll have to use the a different loading code than what is used in core argouml code. Please check the code in NotationModuleCpp.java.

I hope this tiny cookbook helps others and avoids core developers having to answer to trivial questions again. And once more, all credit besides writing this tutorial goes to Michiel, who helped me a lot while I was doing this.

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