Can I get a shout out for .ico files also?!?

IBM loves standards, right?

I put these in as file resources, but its not as good.

@3, yeah, you can use them on the web by putting them in as file resources, but the critical part is "and have them render in the notes client". So it's not just about sticking them in the right bucket.

And how about .TIFF?

@5, why on earth would you need .tiff? Does anyone store new images in .tiff format anymore?

@6 - yes. I frequently run into them. A lot of scanning & fax software generates TIFFs as an 'easy' way to do multipage images.

@7 - well said, Craig. TIFF's are not dead!

But would you add them as image resources into the design of your database? What would you use them for? There are much better formats for that purpose.

Remember you can already add tiff images to rich text item if you want, which sounds more like what you would want to do with output from a fax or scanner.

Google has just released a chart api that generates ONLY png files. We need notes to support PNGs to keep un to date. PNG is the standard now for bit based images. See { Link }

@Peter - now that is a cool API that I have a use for. Thanks for pointing it out.

IBM Technote: { Link }

@christian, yeah, I've seen that technote before. They give absolutely no reason for taking that position. PNG is too important a file format to just ignore. Hopefully they will change their minds.

I vote also for *.png, *.svg AND *.ico files ;-)

comments on #12, #13, and #10.
png is needed for anything "web" now. it's becoming just as important as jif and jpg. tiff is still needed for fax/scanning as it is still the standard in that arenas. both should be supported inline.

@15, Any real world use of .tiff for a fax / scan type application is already supported. The notes client will already render it inline in a richtext field. What more do you want?

I also just tried to use the Google Charts API which provides PNG's. No good for Lotus Notes and the Notes client won't render the returned PNG. Very sad!

Mary Beth has a discussion about this on her blog. I can't see hobbling the design function for years for the sake of older clients that we know will get upgraded anyway. And support for PNG for web clients is much more of interest to me than the Notes client.

@11 & 17, Bruce/Adam - the magic undocumented incantation for Google Chart API to generate GIFs is "chof=gif". I have had it running in production in a notes based dashboard for a month with no problems (computed text marked as Pass-Thru HTML).

Aside from the obvious answer which is why we MUST keep to some archaic 15+ year old format?
We or rather my clients, pay a LOT of money so some 10 year old who designs their graphics comes up with something useful, yet we can't use it for an icon or in some circumstances like say letter head graphics because of this crazy sizing and format issue?
FAIL! Sorry we tell them can't use your logo, thanks for spending all that money for the project.

Take Notes out of 1990 and into the 21st century...
The users (and in many cases that include people like the CIO, CEO and CFO) want applications to look modern. And some of those users are the one in charge of the money, for application development, upgrades, etc.
They spend money on developing a nice logo for a project, just to have me as a developer tell them: "sorry, Notes only support 32x32 pixel icons, in 16 fixed colors, like in Windows 2.x". They then ask: "Why should we spend money on such an old system? We thought it was built on Eclipse, the latest and greatest." Me: "Yes, but even if Eclipse support GIF, JPG, PNG and all other new standards in graphics, Notes does not support all that."
We need full support for PNG everywhere, so we can build good looking applications. That is not only a business case for me as a developer, but a matter of survival for Notes. To be blunt: stay ugly and get slammed, and Microsoft will point at it and say "look how old Notes it, even Windows 95 looked better. Look at the nice icons in Outlook, are you sure you don't want it to look good?"

Grovel grovel...SERIOUSLY want this. Needs to be able to specify a separate image for the Workspace vs Bookmark vs Tab (ie, if they're specified, Notes can't just resize the icon itself).

Business case? Don't have one other than its high time that Notes icons look equally as polished for 3rd party apps as they do for the inbuilt PIM apps). Having such a limited palette and scaling for tab icons detracts from all the wonderful UI work that has gone into 8/8.5.

As Karl-Henry points out, it's a seriously embarrassing limitation that takes all the steam out of a conversation about how "modern" Notes is now. From the standpoint of trying to convince folks who long ago concluded that Notes is legacy 1990s software, showing essentially the same old workspace full of crap icons is killer. Better graphic support throughout is important, but the db/app icons are currently a huge lost opportunity to make a brilliant "first" impression on such folks (to say nothing of fodder for criticism from MS).

We shouldn't have to apologize for anything about the product, and lingering things like db icons, the dated workspace (I love the workspace, but it's too rigid for 2009), the flakey replicator page, and various 64KB limits hinder my willingness to reintroduce Notes to those who have written it off. I fear losing them for another 5 years if they notice the things that *haven't* changed in the last 10.

Oh, and we haven't even talked about the impression this "feature" makes on new developers, who probably see how limited their icon choices are and wonder if this is a platform they should invest time in.

@23 Full acknowledge.

Please introduce support for jpg,gif,bmp,png as database icons. I as an Notes developer of an 3000+ employee company can't even count how many times I had to argue with some project leaders about how on earth it could be that the icon for that new fancy developed database can only have 16 colors...

Please introduce this. It is the one of the first impressions a user has about Notes, and should be a good one.

PNG have alpha channel and will not introduce compression artifacts that are tipical of jpg. These two things are critical to be able to build a cool polished user interfaces.

A joke in my circles is that the database icon is the most important part of the application, while this is a joke it has a a bit of true: the icon is the first thing you see of an application, and the current spec is an heavy weight on the user perception when you see a database for the first time.

16 color DB icons are just ridiculous for modern, nice and polished Notes/XPages apps.

The business value is that users get a positive first impression of Notes apps instead of "uuhh.. another ugly, old and bad application".

Please give us PNG support in databases, and support for better icons for the databases!!! if would be great if we had full control over the "Box" so it could be a full graphic rather then just a box with an icon inside it. Maybe an icon "editor" could let us import the graphic and specify "drop zones" like here are the Unred marks field, here is where the server name goes if it's turned on by the user.. Database name should be optional...

First impressions count and, as many above have already said, the first impression anyone has of a Lotus Notes application is the database icon. I may be sticking my neck out a bit here, but I believe we could lose the Notes icon editor (with smiles on our faces) if we gained the ability to use an image resource for the database icon.

Furthermore, at the very least we need png and svg image resources too. In a modern application this omission is unforgivable.

Cogent explanation of business value:

Product looks good == More sales
Product looks bad == Fewer sales

@28 Rob the icon editor doesn't need to go away (and can't if you believe in backwards compatibility), but we should be able to load a new icon using a file or image resource selector, and then pretty it up after the colors get dumbed down.

In the meantime, a completely new "Notes Icon" element should be created that in 8.5.x onward (hey, a man can dream) allows the png or ico file to be used. You might even be able to set a default icon or graphics editor into which you could open a stored icon for manipulation.

So what on earth has resurrected this discussion? Has there been some link to it, or it just one of those random things?

@31 Kerr, Mary Beth Raven is to thank: { Link }

I think Mary Beth was specifically asking about the database icon. I agree that the client should render .png and other graphic file types. Also to have better icons. But to address both questions, I don't need an image resource to be used as the database icon. I'd just be happy to be able to use something other than 16 bit color.

Just compare the iPhone icons to the Notes Workspace. Both provide the same functionality. But which would you like to use and "click on"?

Anything that will make "prettier" for the users is a huge win! We need to take away the "Ugly" excuse as a reason users don't like Notes.

I just noticed that there is another idea under the "Domino Designer" ideaspace that is just about support for high quality database icons. Go vote for that one too: { Link }

UI is KING - we recently applied a common UI to all our applications, we spent loads of time defining standard fonts, sizes, colours, view twisties (+-), icons in views, curved buttons, action bar backgrounds, tabbed tables in forms, standards for embedded views, navigation fonts & graphics etc.

Our users think we're using new apps, the learning curve has been shortened for new users. The applications all feel more integrated. Its all win win win.

Is such a shame the entry point to our apps is via a low resolution graphic.

This is a features that is a long time coming. They need to provide the support both in the Basic and Standard client.

CAn we also make sure that it's a usable feature for signatures - especially for iNotes.

I'm using Domino Designer 8.5.2, and I go to Resources / Images, click on Import Image Resource, and my options are still only GIF, JPEG, and BMP. I do not see PNG. Why is this marked Complete??

Mary Beth Raven clearly confuses this request for database icons. Very disappointing that they did only the icon and not ALL image resources. Still, who cares -- its all about XPages now right? ;)

@Mike: I agree that PNG can not be imported, nether as image resurce nor into a rihtext field. If you receive an email with a PNG image embedded, it does not display.

This request should be OPEN, not resolved.