Black-background Start button pictures?

What type of file are they originally?

Start8 expects the images to have valid alpha channels and by the looks of it that doesn't.

There many of them here, for example. I don't know about the alpha channels, but black-background images look very bad on Start8 (the black background remains visible). The one I uploaded was a .bmp file originally. I converted it to png to try it with Start8.

You may find if you load them into certain paint apps that you can save as png.  Paint.net may handle 32 bit BMP files ok.

Thank you for your answer, but I'm not sure I understand it. Are you saying that black-background images can be used too, and it's just a matter of sticking to certain specifications?

This is a pretty lazy answer. It took me all of three seconds to do a quick conversion of a .bmp start orb with a black background to a .png. It does nothing as it still has a black background. So I along with the OP are a little confused as to what your point was, as it does nothing to rectify this situation.

I think you and I and everyone else knows that the standard for start orbs on Deviantart and most other start orb sites has been .bmp going all the way back to Windows 7 Start Button Changer. Why Stardock chose to not be compatible with the huge library of already existent backgrounds is beyond me. 

So maybe instead of telling us what Start8 "expects" you could try to make your app compatible with what is already out there. As forcing everyone to redo their icons just because someone was too lazy to code this app to work with .bmp's correctly is a pretty poor excuse for a paid app. Not to mention that your competitors (like Startisback) managed to support .bmp's out the gate.

p.s. I would also love to know the reasoning of forcing me to view adds on a support forum for an app I paid for. Are you really not making enough money?

Unfortunately the apis we used to load images did not process the custom format BMP files well.  From testing it seems the same is true of paint.net and photoshop who also ignore the alpha channel.

Our next update will add support for reading these files, though in testing we have found a few that are disliked.  They may have been made incorrectly and not work in anything.

As for why we used PNG, thats actually quite simple.  We wanted people to be able to easily create their own images and saving a png with an alpha channel can be done in pretty much every paint app.  Creating the custom BMP files requires you to do some messing around in the paint app.  We do support BMP files already, but not containing alpha only magic pink transparency.

Anyway I would hope we may be able to put out the update next week along with a few other minor tweaks that we have made recently, but obviously dates do change.

Regarding the ads on the forum, the forums show banners of other stardock products for cross selling purposes.  No third party ads are shown, they should all be Stardock products (apps or games).

"I would hope we may be able to put out the update next week"

Next week? It's been over two now so where is this supposed update to fix the black background?

"We wanted people to be able to easily create their own images and saving a png with an alpha channel can be done in pretty much every paint app."

So forcing everyone to make new orbs is somehow easier than using the thousands of already existing orbs that are on Deviantart and other start orb theme sites?

"Regarding the ads on the forum, the forums show banners of other stardock products for cross selling purposes."

It would appear that the general purpose of this forum would be for users to report bugs and ask help questions about Stardock's software. Considering that people generally do not visit forums to praise software and are usually only on the forum when they need help or are upset about something being broken, does it really sound like a good idea to flog your other apps to these people? Frankly, advertisements on a help forum for support for PAID software is really unprofessional. You really should quit trying to sell me more crap when all I am looking for is advise or help on a product you already received my money for.

https://forums.stardock.com/440739