Fun with Favicon
Sunday, March 16, 2003 (20:03:53)

Posted by watts

I added a custom favicon (see below for a definition) to the site. Two ways to see it. First, if you add Aggiefamily.com to your favorites, the icon file will start showing up. Second, in Internet Explorer, click the icon in the address bar. Hold down the button and move the icon a tiny bit to the right and let go. Try this two or three times. Usually after about the third try, the icon appears.

What is a favicon?

From the Webopedia: Short for favorite icon, a customized icon that is used by Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) versions 5.0 and later. When a user bookmarks a specific Web page, that Web page loads a customized icon into the user's browser, typically a tiny version of a company or Web site's logo. The favicon is displayed next to the Web site's name in the Favorites list and can also be displayed in the Links toolbar. When a site has not created a favicon, IE will load the IE logo into the browser by default.

When a user bookmarks a page, the browser will request a favicon.ico file from the directory of the Web page. If such a file exists, then the Web page is using a favicon and will return the file to the browser.

A typical favicon is 16 x 16 pixels and uses only 16 colors, but I believe newer versions of IE support up to 256 colors...mine is 16x16x256 colors.

Where does it go?

Upload the favicon.ico file to the root of your web site. Most browers will pick it up but you can add a tag in your header to make sure:



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