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Could you suggest a source for xaml toolbar icons (new, open, save, print)?

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closed as not constructive by LittleBobbyTables, Dharmendra, Maerlyn, stusmith, Wooble Dec 4 '12 at 13:47


8 Answers 8

up vote 9 down vote accepted

You usually don't want to use vectorized icons for toolbar items - it will slow down rendering and they are almost always the same size. Just use a PNG file and make sure that SnapsToDevicePixels is set so they aren't blurry.

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The one caveat being if you need the icons to scale to many different sizes. In that case vector graphics usually look better. –  Bryan Anderson Nov 25 '08 at 14:43
They're almost always the same size - except when the user changes the DPI setting (including this "Make everything larger" helper button in Vista) - and then they all get large, and bitmap ones get blurry and look awful. –  Pavel Minaev Jul 13 '09 at 3:01
You can avoid the performance hit by using one of the brush- or visual-level caching mechanisms in WPF. You will consume more video memory, though it shouldn't be any worse than if you were simply using raster images. –  Mike Strobel Aug 16 '10 at 14:32
I would like to add that with more people using their living-room TV as a media center display that settings higher than the default DPI are becoming more common. It's particularly irritating when applications either do not handle this properly or look bury when viewed on these displays. I think the time has come for vectorized graphics for common icon usage, besides a raster version can always be created on the fly when using vector graphics but the inverse is not true at least not with out lossiness. –  jpierson Oct 27 '10 at 3:35
@Domokun - I agree but there are some ways to intelligently scale vectorized graphics in a non linear fashion to get better results at smaller sizes. One example is to use scale invariant stroke width and such. There are also techniques that can tone the color depending on the scale too. I'd rather see us focusing on these types of ideas. –  jpierson Jan 27 '12 at 16:55

Recently came across a site dedicated for XAML icons and that too free.


What is Xamalot? Xamalot.com is a provider of clipart and other XAML resources (and most of our art is also available in other formats, such as PNG or SVG).

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If you continue to have problems when using small pngs in wpf check out this post by Hanselman.

Also - If you are using 16x16 pngs, instead of using PNGOUT you can simply set the following options on your image inside your buttons:

Stretch="Uniform" SnapsToDevicePixels="True" Height="16" Width="16"

Leaving any one of these out on any of your images can cause the whole toolbar to render blurry.

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I've had problems with my PNG's still being blurry after setting SnapsToDevicePixels.

I found a set of 35 free vista style vector icons via http://rrelyea.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!167AD7A5AB58D5FE!1728.entry

I haven't tried them yet, but it is worth posting about.

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The link to the zip is dead :( –  Sam Oct 19 '10 at 9:16

ArtistsValley.com has a good collection of XAML icons. Take look at them here http://www.artistsvalley.com

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just added on the site http://www.xamltemplates.net/ a set of icons which include DrawingImages, DrawingBrushes and also in png format from 256x256 to 16x16

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Checkout these: http://www.infragistics.com/dotnet/netadvantage/icons.aspx#Overview

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These look pretty nice, thanks for the suggestion. –  jpierson May 30 '10 at 5:03

Old question but I know very few people know that Visual Studio comes bundled with a set of standard icons (including vector ones) in a zip file.


The Tango desktop project which is the official source of Linux icons (I think) is also a great resource


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thexamlproject.com is another resource –  Filip Frącz Dec 12 '12 at 22:01

protected by Will Aug 13 '10 at 17:55


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