Developed icon

Hi,

    anybody knows how to set your own incon on the deployed exe ?

best regards,

Sebastian

Sebastian,

Check out the thread from November 2000 with subject

     Re: Change the EXE Beachball Icon? AND Install Program
recomendations?

Basically you edit the file EmptyStub which contains the beachball icon,
use the program StubSize.exe to make some adjustments, and then deploy
it.  For editing EmptyStub, I rename it EmptyStub.dll and then use a
resource editor from Borland C++.  Seems to work.

Keith Alcock

Sebastian -

>     anybody knows how to set your own incon on the deployed exe ?

The short answer is that there is no way within Dolphin to specify the icon.

Back in December of 2000, I posted this same question.  My email, and the
resulting thread, was entitled  "Suggestion for Lagoon: Identify an
alternate
Icon for final .exe"

Currently, I use MicroAngelo, an inexpensive tool that creates and edits
Icons
and Cursors.

Others have suggested using standard development tools, such as the
Microsoft
C++ compiler.

It has always seemed to me an "unprofessional" feature that one cannot
simply
identify an icon when we package up an app. Perhaps your interest will help
promote its implemenation.

Best wishes,

Ken Lee

OK I'll see.

    as allways thanks guys !

Sebastian




Ken Lee <[hidden email]> escribió en el mensaje de noticias
956vd3$fl9ub$[hidden email]...
> Sebastian -
>
> >     anybody knows how to set your own incon on the deployed exe ?
>
> The short answer is that there is no way within Dolphin to specify the
icon. help
> promote its implemenation.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Ken Lee
>
>
>

Ken,

> It has always seemed to me an "unprofessional" feature that one cannot
> simply identify an icon when we package up an app. Perhaps your interest
> will help promote its implemenation.

I would possibly agree with you here. The reason that we haven't so far
implemented the user defined icon feature is as follows. Under Win9x,
interpreting the PEF (portable execution format) to enable writing of
resources is pretty complex and the amount of effort involved has always
been seen (by us) as disproportionate to the potential gain. Another factor
is that, under Windows 2000 (and, I think, NT) the operation is fairly
trivial to implement so spending a large amount of development effort on a
Win9x version is even less attractive.

So, what do you say? How many people would be happy with this facility only
when deploying under Win2K (and perhaps NT)? Obviously, the deployed
executables would work identically under all Windows versions.

Another thing to point out is that VisualWorks also has this same
"unprofessional" feature. I believe that in the latest release of 5i they
also majke use of a third party EXE/resource writer to create a single EXE
and modify the icon.

Best Regards

Andy Bower
Dolphin Support
http://www.object-arts.com/Support.htm

Not all Addictions are Bad for you
http://www.object-arts.com/Addiction.htm

Andy Bower <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:957eg3$g1c6v$[hidden email]...
>
> So, what do you say? How many people would be happy with this facility
only
> when deploying under Win2K (and perhaps NT)? Obviously, the deployed
> executables would work identically under all Windows versions.

We use Windows NT and Windows 2000 for development.  Even if the deployment
icon feature only worked in 2000 I would be glad to see it.

This is slightly related: I would also like a better way to manage icons in
Dolphin applications.  Currently it seems as though I either have to include
them as separate files, or in a resource DLL.  I would love some kind of
resource manager that could include them in either the main exe, or
automatically create a resource dll when I deploy.  If this is not too
complicated to do it might be worth looking into as well.

Chris

Andy,

> So, what do you say? How many people would be happy with this facility
only
> when deploying under Win2K (and perhaps NT)?

If you can provide the feature while still targeting 9x, then I see no
reason for users of the benefiting OS to be dragged down by 9x holdouts like
me.


> Obviously, the deployed
> executables would work identically under all Windows versions.

I'm not sure I'd agree that it's obvious, but, if it is the case, then I see
no problem with your plan.

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]

Andy, Bill, et al

> > So, what do you say? How many people would be happy with this
facility only
> > when deploying under Win2K (and perhaps NT)?
>
> If you can provide the feature while still targeting 9x, then I see no
> reason for users of the benefiting OS to be dragged down by 9x
holdouts like
> me.

I agree. I'm still on NT, but it seems reasonable, and forward-looking,
especially if it is fairly trivial, as you say, for Win2K and
(hopefully) NT.

Best wishes, and with much appreciation for how friendly and open you
guys are to such suggestions !

Ken Lee

Chris,

> > So, what do you say? How many people would be happy with this facility
> only
> > when deploying under Win2K (and perhaps NT)? Obviously, the deployed
> > executables would work identically under all Windows versions.
>
> We use Windows NT and Windows 2000 for development.  Even if the
deployment
> icon feature only worked in 2000 I would be glad to see it.
>
> This is slightly related: I would also like a better way to manage icons
in
> Dolphin applications.  Currently it seems as though I either have to
include
> them as separate files, or in a resource DLL.  I would love some kind of
> resource manager that could include them in either the main exe, or
> automatically create a resource dll when I deploy.  If this is not too
> complicated to do it might be worth looking into as well.

Well (as you've probably guessed) it's basically the same issue. However, we
can't defer too much functionality to Win2K/NT since this would certinly
irritate the Win9x users. Also the conditional code might start to give
maintenance problems.

Best Regards,

Andy Bower
Dolphin Support
http://www.object-arts.com

---
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---

Andy,

        I agree with Ken - it would be a very nice feature.

        Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you always specify and external
.ico file in all Windows applications?  If you simply externalized the
file so that the developer only had to specify the name, wouldn't that
solve the problem?  Or are you stuck by file size and therefore
resources?

        Anyway, it would be a cheap and dirty solution for now even if
there weren't an editor.

Larry
--
[hidden email]

"Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> wrote (with possible editing):

Larry,

> Anyway, it would be a cheap and dirty solution for now even if
> there weren't an editor.

Well, my forthcoming Goodie, a Bitmap/Icon/Cursor Library/Editor,  can
create, edit and save icons in icon files so it might (note the might) not
be too difficult to incorporate this. Perhaps an option to take a standard
Dolphin stub, insert a selected icon from the library , adjust the stub size
(or whatever Blair's little application did) and resave the stub with a new
name. I'll add it to the list of things to look at.

Ian

>  I'll add it to the list of things to look at.

... and it has now been looked at. The latest (and hopefully final) version
of my Image Library.Editor can read and write the icons to and from Dolphin
V4 exe files as well as to normal bitmap, icon and cursor files. As it
operates using a brute force approach, it just inserts the raw icon
structures into the appropriate place in the exe file, I can't see why it
won't work on all OS versions - I've only tried it on Win95 and Win2000
though.

It has an attended and unattended mode

Attended allows you to create the icons and store then in an image library
or ico file. When you have deployed an application you can use the
ImageLibrary to insert the icons into the final exe file.

Unattended lets you create and save the icons into an ico file. You then add
a script into Lagoon's pre deployment workspace that uses some ImageLibrary
methods to insert the icons into the Dolphin EmptyStub used for the
deployment.

NB:

It only works with Dolphin generated applications - it won't look at exe
files from other sources.

It needs some of my other goodies installed - and is V4 only I'm afraid.

You always have to create 4 icons, 16x16 and 32x32 both at 4 and 8 bit
colour depth. However, if you use the same set or 4 bit icons twice (IYSWIM)
then the ImageLibrary will automatically upgrade two of them to 8 bit colour
for you.

It will be a couple of weeks at least before this appears on my web site so
if anyone wants a pre-release version, and doesn't mind the lack of
documentation and possibility of bugs, then let me know by e-mail.

Ian
[hidden email]