topic Re: Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable in LabVIEW

Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable

mikeporter — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 20:32:18 GMT

I am creating a program that is going to be able to open multiple file types and I would like to have each file type to have its own icon. I found how to configure it in the registry, but it depends on the executable having multiple icon resources built into it. Is there a way to do that in LV?

Mike...

Re: Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable

zou — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 23:26:48 GMT

You should be able to use a few .ico files for your files.

Re: Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable

mikeporter — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 23:56:09 GMT

Yes, but the data from them needs to be incorporated into the executable somehow.

Mike...

Re: Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable

zou — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 00:07:32 GMT

Are you sure?

Is your OS Win7, or 10?

Re: Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable

MichaelBalzer — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 01:24:45 GMT

You might try something like Resource Hacker, run at post-build to add your custom ICO files. The command below will add an additional icon file to the exe:

ResourceHacker.exe -open "YourApp.exe" -save "ModifiedApp.exe" -action add -res "CustomIcon.ico" -mask ICONGROUP,2,

The number after ICONGROUP should be incremented for each icon added. The icon added by LabVIEW is 1.

You can also script the above to add multiple icons at once (untested):

[FILENAMES]
Exe=    YourApp.exe
SaveAs= ModifiedApp.exe
Log=    Log.log	
[COMMANDS]
-add     CustomIcon1.ico, ICONGROUP,2,
-add     CustomIcon2.ico, ICONGROUP,3,
-add     CustomIcon3.ico, ICONGROUP,4,

Re: Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable

RavensFan — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 01:28:11 GMT

I remember 20+ years ago adding an .ico to a VB built executable. I don't remember how I did it.

I googled and found this. https://command-tab.com/2008/07/21/how-to-combine-ico-files-into-a-windows-exe/

I wasn't messing with multiple icons, nor am I sure this is exactly what I did. But it seems similar in principle.

Re: Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable

mikeporter — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 18:50:58 GMT

Thanks for pointing me towards ResourceHacker. I have managed to get the icon files included into the executable. The problem now is that that all the file types associated with the executable have the same icon. Using a utility I found on line, I can change the icon that is associated with them, but they all change at once. Is there some sort of resource or setting that tells Windows to let the different file types to have different icons?

Mike...

Re: Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable

RavensFan — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 20:09:39 GMT

I don't think the executable would be what defines what file extensions are connected to what icon.

I think it would be some sort of Windows registry setting that defines what icons are associated with particular file extensions. Think of how Excel has different file types with different extensions, but click on them and they all still go to Excel.exe.

I don't have any details on this, but thinking this might point you in the correct direction.

Re: Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable

NeilR — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 10:05:25 GMT

Hi Mike

I've been working on a similar issue. I believe the icons in the executable are purely related to the executable itself. You can see them in Resource Hacker or edit them as layers in GIMP. As a rule there seem to be 12 layers; 16 colour, 256 colour and 24 bit at 16,32,48 and 256 pixels which I believe are used for the different instances of the icon in Windows.

This article change-a-file-types-icon-in-windows details a free utility that will allow a particular icon to be associated with each file type. Hopefully that helps.

NeilR

Re: Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable

Yamaeda — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 10:41:34 GMT

LV comes with an icon editor that can add as many layers/sizes as you'd like. It's called IconEdit and is located somewhere under the NI folder. It's the one that starts if you in your Build-project untick "default icon" and click Icon Editor.

Re: Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable

NeilR — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 10:50:50 GMT

Hi Yamaeda

Yes true enough, but it's very limited and from what I can see you can't take a 256 image and easily resize for 48,32,16 you have to redraw each time.

Re: Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable

rolfk — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 12:04:43 GMT

Yes the distributed icon editor that comes with LabVIEW is an old LabWindows/CVI program. At that time 256 color icons and 32*32 pixel icons where about the hottest thing Windows would support. I'm still not sold on 48*48 or 64*64 to be necessary in any way nor do I see a lot of use for 10 million color icons.

That said the registry association as used in Windows definitely allows to define for each filetype an individual icon. The problem here is that there are several possibilities to define such icon associations and they all involve a multi stage setup.

The original principle is that you define a file extension specification in HKR\.<your file extension> whose key value defines a filetype name. Then the key value for HKR\<filetype name>\DefaultIcon contains the path to the icon resource. This can be directly an icon file somewhere in the file system or it can point to a dll or exe file, with an appended icon resource ID after a comma.

It's definitely NOT necessary (but possible through a resource compiler or editor) to add the icons to your built executable as the path can also simply point to an icon somewhere in the filesystem, such as an icon file in a support directory in your application installation directory.

Under HKR\<filetype name>\shell you have a list of keys which define different actions by well know verbs such as open, print, etc. Under there you have another key with the name "command" whose value defines the shell command to execute with the filepath of the executable to use, or optionally a registered ClassID instead which must be present elsewhere in the registry for the actual executable. The value %1 in the command is replaced with the file name that was activated by the user.

It's not exactly rocket science to figure out by simply looking at the filetypes LabVIEW registers for its own filetypes but it is definitely approaching relational database complexity

Re: Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable

Yamaeda — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 12:21:20 GMT

@NeilR wrote:

Hi Yamaeda

Yes true enough, but it's very limited and from what I can see you can't take a 256 image and easily resize for 48,32,16 you have to redraw each time.

Yes, true. 😕 The resizing i do in e.g. GIMP and simply copy/paste the buffer. You can technically create icons in GIMP but it has some issues of its own.

Re: Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable

MichaelBalzer — Mon, 12 Aug 2019 03:25:25 GMT

For icon creation I've found IcoFX is good (version 1.6 is freeware, current versions are paid). It can generate all icon colour + size combinations from a single image in one batch process. The results are good enough for 48x48 and most 32x32, but some 32x32 and 16x16 icons may need some hand edits depending on the source image.

Re: Adding Icon Resources to a LV-built Executable

PragmaTest — Sat, 26 Oct 2019 13:51:15 GMT

Hi,

This is the last post of Mike Porter, and his super cool blog named notatamelion is down.

Does anyone has any news of him ?

Thx,