C / C++ / MFC

18-Nov-02 5:57

Okay, I posted a message about getting the icon from an .exe. I was told to look into ExtractIcon and ExtractAssociatedIcon. But I have another question. What do I do to apply this icon to a button? I currently have several buttons on a toolbar and each button has an associated bitmap, that I created in the resources. Now, I need to pull off the icon from an .exe file and use that as my toolbar button bitmap. What do I need to do? I am clueless...

I am putting my original posting below, just in case someone needs a little more info on what I am trying to do:

"I am trying to do something and the part that sounds the simplest is turning out to the hardest. I am putting a button on a toolbar. What this button will do is allow a user to set the button up to point to an executable. For instace, if the user wants this button to launch solitaire, it goes through the process of having the user find the .exe file. This is simple. The hard part is I am trying to use the icon from the .exe file as the bitmap for my button. And I cannot figure out how to do it. Any ideas? I have looked on this website but haven't found anything, it might be that I don't know where to look exactly... "

KevinHall18-Nov-02 6:34

KevinHall

18-Nov-02 6:34

This sounds really interesting. When you figure this out, post the solution as an article on CodeProject.

- Kevin

Shog⁹18-Nov-02 7:49

18-Nov-02 7:49

Toolbars can pull the images for their buttons from either a bitmap (as you are doing now) or from an image list. If you use an image list, you can easily add icons to it dynamically and cause buttons to display them; see the Toolbars & Docking Windows section here for more information on how to use image lists in toolbars.

Shog⁹
~~------~~

Sitting in muddy water
isn't such a bad life,
if it ends after the first time... - Yoko Kanno, The Real Folk Blues

carpediem18-Nov-02 12:57

18-Nov-02 12:57

I have looked through most of the articles but I could not really find anything that will work. Unfortunately, my project is written in C, not C++ nor MFC. Many or most of the articles reference classes, which I cannot use. So I am still lost. I undestand how to get the handle to the icon, just no clue how to apply it to my toolbar. Any other ideas?

Shog⁹18-Nov-02 13:09

18-Nov-02 13:09

CarpeDiem wrote:
Many or most of the articles reference classes, which I cannot use.

Well, you'll just be writing more code yourself then; it's all the same in the end. How are you creating and initializing your toolbar now?

Shog⁹
~~------~~

Sitting in muddy water
isn't such a bad life,
if it ends after the first time... - Yoko Kanno, The Real Folk Blues

Al_Pennyworth18-Nov-02 13:14

Al_Pennyworth

18-Nov-02 13:14

This is a little tough to describe. The main toolbar has bitmaps that are contained in the resources. When the app is launched, there is a function that someone created that loads all the bitmaps. There is another function, similar to TBADDBITMAP, with a few minor changes. The toolbar window itself is created with a CreateWindow and uses a class (which I do not have access to). The buttons are added one at a time. So, I have to call a function to add the button, even though I don't have a bitmap, so the button is blank. I am sorry for not being overly descriptive, I don't have access to all the code to see the exact details of how it is getting loaded...

Shog⁹18-Nov-02 13:23

18-Nov-02 13:23

Alright, well this needs some clarification yet, but here are your options from what i can see:

If you are using standard Win32 toolbars (CreateWindow(TOOLBARCLASSNAME, ...);, then you can easily convert your existing code to work with image lists, which makes dynamically adding icons trivial.

If you are using some other toolbar class, then all bets are off; you'll need to find out what's possible. If it turns out you need to have all the buttons in one big bitmap that's created when the toolbar is initialized, things get a bit more tricky. But it's still possible to get it working, you'll just need to figure out how many icons you want and draw them onto the bitmap prior to adding it to the toolbar.

Shog⁹
~~------~~

Sitting in muddy water
isn't such a bad life,
if it ends after the first time... - Yoko Kanno, The Real Folk Blues

carpediem18-Nov-02 13:35

18-Nov-02 13:35

From my understanding (and looking at the code), the main toolbar is created through a CreateWindow(TOOLBARCLASSNAME, ...); What happens is that each individual bitmap that is used for each button is actually contained within 1 file. There are about 39 bitmaps stored within this one file and is assigned at run time. For instance, the toolbar is created and then SendMessage(hwndTask, TOOLBARADDINGFUNCTION, 120, IDB_BUTTON_TO_ADD) is called. This is what actually assigns the bitmap to each button, the 120 is the position the bitmap is stored at. Did this help at all?

Sorry for the different username, I am using a friend's computer to reply and I just noticed he was logged in as his username.

Shog⁹18-Nov-02 17:32

18-Nov-02 17:32

I don't have any example code at hand right now (at home, eating Smile | :)

), but here's the process in a nutshell:

Create the toolbar with CreateWindowEx(0, TOOLBARCLASSNAME, NULL, WS_CHILD|WS_VISIBLE|TBSTYLE_FLAT|TBSTYLE_WRAPABLE, 0, 0, 0, 0, hwndParent, (HMENU)ID_TOOLBAR, hInstance, NULL); or similar.
Use ImageList_Create() to create an image list of the appropriate size for your bitmap.
Use ImageList_Add() or ImageList_AddMasked() to add bitmaps to the image list. Use ImageList_AddIcon() to add icons to it.
Send the TB_SETIMAGELIST message to the toolbar, associating the image list with it.
Send the TB_BUTTONSTRUCTSIZE message to the toolbar, informing it of the size of the TBBUTTON structure you'll be using.
Send the TB_ADDBUTTONS message to the toolbar, adding buttons as necessary.

This leaves out a lot of detail, i know, but give a look through MSDN for each step, and i think it'll make sense. If not, post back tomorrow & i'll see what i can do.

Shog⁹
~~------~~

Sitting in muddy water
isn't such a bad life,
if it ends after the first time... - Yoko Kanno, The Real Folk Blues

carpediem19-Nov-02 7:16

19-Nov-02 7:16

I have researched all of the items that you suggested. The biggest problem is not being able to post the code so you can see exactly what is happening. In a nutshell, it was described to me is that what happens is that the bitmap is read in and when we need to place a button's bitmap on the toolbar, we pass in the resource id of the button and the position the image is in on the bitmap. Basically, we have one bitmap file that contains about 40 images. When adding a button, we pass in the position the image is in and there is some code that I do not have access to that handles applying it. So, I tried to implement most of your suggestions. I called ExtractIcon to get the handle to the icon from the .exe file the user might choose, I created the ImageList, I called the AddIcon to add it. Here is gets a little sticky. From here, I call GetImageInfo to get the bitmap handle, then I tried to use the bitmap handle to apply the bitmap to the button. It doesn't work when I do this. What happens is that there is a function that does a CreateCompatibleDC, then does a GetObject with the handle to the bitmap, then does a SelectObject, if the SelectObject returns good, it does a BitBlt. The problem I have discovered is that the SelectObject returns 0x00000000 every time. The bitmaps placed on the toolbar the old way use LoadImage to get the bitmap handle. I use the GetImageInfo. But, in the end, it doesn't work. My biggest handicaps are I don't have access to all the code and I am forced to leave the way the other buttons are placed on the toolbars, I was told not to change that code. Am I screwed or what?????

Shog⁹19-Nov-02 7:28