Executable - multiple icons

[Zyga]

Hi,
I would like to associate icons with file types that are handled by a LabVIEW built application. To do so, "defaultIcon" key has to take a value of executable path with parameter "resource ID".
The question is how to build in more than one icon with executable?
Examples of LabVIEW keys:
-library: ..\LabVIEW.exe,-8
-llb: ..\LabVIEW.exe,-3
Is it even possible with app builder? Any workaround?
 

[hooovahh]

Sure it's possible.  When you are making your application in the project be sure and add an ICO file to the project that has multiple images in it.  I usually do this to have several resolutions since it sometimes looks better when larger or smaller.  I usually make an icon that has 5 images in it at different resolutions: 128x128, 64x64, 32x32, 24x24, and 16x16.  Then in the application builder settings, pick the icon as the one from the project.  I just opened my EXE in resource hacker and see them all listed under the icon section so I assume you can probably reference them by the index, just like LabVIEW does.  Otherwise you could just include multiple image files in your application builder that just go into support.  Then have your icon be a path to that image file by setting that in the registry.

[Zyga]

5 hours ago, hooovahh said:

 Otherwise you could just include multiple image files in your application builder that just go into support.  Then have your icon be a path to that image file by setting that in the registry.

Tested and it works.

With multiple images stored in a single file it doesn't work. Looks like win uses them just for better apperance. All of them list in the resource hacker as a single group.
When we take a look e.g. on LabVIEW, there is a group for a single file type icon.

Nevertheless specifying icon path explicitly solves my problem.
Thanks!

[hooovahh]

Okay great, thanks for testing this out, I just assumed it would work since it was putting multiple images in the EXE so why shouldn't it be reference like the multiple images in LabVIEW's EXE.

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

On 2/16/2017 at 11:19 PM, Zyga said:

Tested and it works.

With multiple images stored in a single file it doesn't work. Looks like win uses them just for better apperance. All of them list in the resource hacker as a single group.
When we take a look e.g. on LabVIEW, there is a group for a single file type icon.

Nevertheless specifying icon path explicitly solves my problem.
Thanks!

The multiple icons in a single icon resource are only meant for different resolutions, but really all represent the same icon. If the Windows explorer needs to display icons it retrieves the icon resource and looks for the resolution (eg. 32 * 32 pixels, or 16 * 16 for a small icon and if it can't find it, it retrieves the one closest to that resolution and rescales it, which often looks suboptimal.

In order to have multiple icons in an executable you have to add multiple icon resources into the executable, each with its own resource identifier (the number you have to put behind the comma in the registry). The application builder does not provide for a means to do that, but there are many resource editors out there, both as part of development systems such as Visual Studio or LabWindows CVI as well as standalone versions. If you look for standalone versions beware however, many download sites for such tools nowadays are less than honest and either pack lots of adware into the download or outright badware that you definitely do not want to have on your computer.   

Edited March 8, 2017 by rolfk