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Some sites add a tag in the HTML to have a customized Favorite Icon in the users Favorites List whenever they add the site to their favorites list.
as I found through searching.. the tag is:
<_LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="/favicon.ico">
I have added the underscore (_) just incase the forum has an auto-process feature for the html tags..
any way. I have few questions now.
1- is this tag the only way to implement this feature?
2- some users might bookmark one of the internal pages not the main page. So, should I add the tag to all my pages?
3- Will this work on all browsers or only Internet Explorer?
4- Where should the icon be saved? Same directory as the html file? So if I add this tag to all my pages, I might need to store the same icon in several folders?
5- What are the icon's specifications? Am I restricte to a specific size or number of colors?
6- What is the best way to create an icon? Does photoshop save as .ico? I tried but I couldn't see the option. What are the best applications I should use?
Thanks everybody for the concern.
VidER
<rel type="shortcut icon" href="/images/favicon.ico">
<rel type="icon" href="/images/favicon.gif">
You can also place a 'favicon.ico' in the root of your webserver, the file must be in .ico format. Any of the pages on the site will use this site icon.
If you go with the <link rel="shortcut icon"> method, store the icon in a standard place, and use an absolute URI.
Many surfers will instantly bookmark the first page they get sent to by a SE. If that's in a subdir like www.mydomain.com/articles/widgets then you need to ensure you have a favicon.ico in that dir.
Does photoshop save as .ico?
Not without a plug-in. And that's a shortcoming that Adobe will fix in the next release, I've heard.
Thing many people don't realize is that .ico is a fromat that can hold several files - it's more like a library in that sense. So you can have a 16x16 file for the hotlist, and a 32x32 for display when it's drage=ged to the desktop. Not that many people do this, because the desktop icon vanishes when Windos re-boots. Otherwise, it's a feature that might really catch on.
Am I restricte to a specific size or number of colors?
The restrictions on a favicon are related to the user system, because ultimately an icon is a system feature and not really a browser feature. So at first, the recommendation was to restrict it to a 16 color palette. Then the recommendation was to restrict it to the Windows palette.
Today, you can go with other colors, but it's still wise to limit the total palette to 256 colors. Of course, at 16x16 you've only got 256 pixels, but if you also include a 32x32, you should reduce that color palette. The size should include at least one 16x16 image - that's the standard.
There's lots of threads about favicon in our Graphics Forum [webmasterworld.com]. A site search will turn up a lot of reading, but still this area is a bit shrouded in mystery.
I hear mixed opinions,
1. Means nothing
2. means people are bookmarking site
3. means some browers are loading this by default and thereby it is a count for this particular browser only.
4 means all of the above...
Any thoughts?
Thanx
Chew
The numbers no longer mean anything useful.
After creating the icon, you must associate it with your Web page. One way is to save the icon with the default file name of favicon.ico in the root directory of your domain—for example, www.microsoft.com/favicon.ico. Each time your Web page is added to a user's favorites, Internet Explorer automatically searches for this file and places the icon next to all the favorites and quick links originating from your site.
From MSDN: How to Add a Shortcut Icon to a Web Page [msdn.microsoft.com]
All I know is that I was getting frequent 404's for favicon.ico in subdirs. When I placed the file in the subdirs the 404's went away.
What M$ says and what M$ does is sometimes not the same.
You do not need to place it in every directory, however if you use subdomain you will also have to place it in the directories they point, i.e.: in every domain or subdomain root.
