How to bundle an application with icons?

Hi,

Suppose I need to bundle a Pharo application (a package) I am
developing with some custom icons: is there any "standard"/
agreed-upon method to do that in Pharo?

For example the MenuIcons class includes byte strings (automatically I
assume) converted from some external PNG files that show up as icons
with menu items: which tool can be used to create a class with set of
icons for an arbitrary application?

If I want to reuse icons for standard actions in my application, which
is the proper way to access menu icons other than to directly access
these stored images?

Thanks.

PS Other than the "by example" books (both Squeak and Pharo) which
give some basics of building GUI for applications, are there any
general guidelines for GUI building in these systems?

--
Dimitry Golubovsky

Anywhere on the Web

I know that fernando was building an infrastructure for icons.
But I did not see him recently on the list.

Stef

On Jan 12, 2011, at 3:50 PM, Dimitry Golubovsky wrote:

Hi Dimitry,

Recently I did a little tool which I've used as a general resource
importer, it's in beta state but you may use it for your purposes.
Basically it takes files in a directory and imports them as
"resources" or methods in a Smalltalk class. A resource is simply a
Dictionary in a class variable where your resource will be imported.
So you may store the imported resources (in your case icons)

1) As methods in a library class. The naming of selectors is taken
from the file name, lowercasing the first letter and including the
extension letters if found.
2) As 'resources' in a class variable acting as an IdentityDictionary.
Obviously importing as resources is a LOT faster because it doesn't
encode the images and also doesn't compile methods.

To import pictures located in a folder in a class MyPicturesClass1 as
methods, evaluate:

LDPictureLibraryImporter named: #MyPicturesClass1.

To import pictures as resources

LDPictureLibraryImporter new
        importAsResources;
        named: 'MyPicturesClass2'.

After you've finished the importing as methods you may want to explore:

| pics |
pics := MyPicturesClass1 new.
( MyPicturesClass1 organization listAtCategoryNamed: #autogenerated )
        collect: [: sel | pics perform: sel ]

In the case of resources just evaluate

MyPicturesClass2 resources

To try it: http://www.squeaksource.com/LibraryImporter.html

Cheers,

2011/1/12 Dimitry Golubovsky <[hidden email]>:


--
Hernán Morales
Information Technology Manager,
Institute of Veterinary Genetics.
National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET).
La Plata (1900), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Telephone: +54 (0221) 421-1799.
Internal: 422
Fax: 425-7980 or 421-1799.

By the way you may use too

MenuIcons
        createNewIconMethodsFromDirectory: 'C:\MyIcons\'
        filenames: #('icon1' 'icon2' ...)
        classified: '*myresourcespackage'

Cheers,

2011/1/12 Dimitry Golubovsky <[hidden email]>: