Dos-Man 64 wrote:

On Sep 22, 3:38 pm, Ryan McCoskrie <ryan.mccosk... at (no spam) invalid.invalid
wrote:
I think the best advise here is forget everything you know about
computers[1].

_ALL_ of it.

Search for "Unix programming"[2] on the web.
Start learning again.

[1] I had to do this as well a while ago.
[2] This will mostly be C and shell script but
the principles are mainly what you need to
learn.
Well, I am an excellent C programmer already. Well, that's my opinion
anyway. And I am familiar with shell scripting already. Where I
struggle is in determining how X does some things differently than the
way Microsoft Windows was doing it. It's the same general tasks that
are being performed; it's just a matter of the tasks being done
differently.

The reason that I said to look those up is because your dealing with a
different way of thinking about programming.
Embedding icons into executables is a cute idea but also kinda' silly
sounding. Why would you want that kind of a feature on a natively command
line operating system?

Ryan McCoskrie wrote:
Dos-Man 64 wrote:

On Sep 22, 3:38 pm, Ryan McCoskrie <ryan.mccosk... at (no spam) invalid.invalid
wrote:
 I think the best advise here is forget everything you know about
computers[1].

_ALL_ of it.

Search for "Unix programming"[2] on the web.
Start learning again.

[1] I had to do this as well a while ago.
[2] This will mostly be C and shell script but
the principles are mainly what you need to
learn.
Well, I am an excellent C programmer already.  Well, that's my opinion
anyway.  And I am familiar with shell scripting already.  Where I
struggle is in determining how X does some things differently than the
way Microsoft Windows was doing it.  It's the same general tasks that
are being performed; it's just a matter of the tasks being done
differently.

The reason that I said to look those up is because your dealing with a
different way of thinking about programming.
Embedding icons into executables is a cute idea but also kinda' silly
sounding. Why would you want that kind of a feature on a natively command
line operating system?

Things have advanced in the last 30 odd years.
If the application is one that requires a GUI, it would make perfect sense.
Also, all applications that run on the command line also run inside a
GUI, so it would be "a cute idea" to have the icon embedded. Note that
you are not forced to have an icon embedded, but you could, if you
wanted to.
You could have an ELF section which contains one (or more) icons. If
that section is not present, or if you cannot open that file for
reading, you just deal with the application as usual.
However, I'm not sure whether all GUIs (this is where Linux differs from
some other OS) can handle the same subset of icon types and resolutions.

Josef
--
These are my personal views and not those of Fujitsu Technology Solutions!
Josef Möllers (Pinguinpfleger bei FTS)
        If failure had no penalty success would not be a prize (T..  Pratchett)
Company Details:http://de.ts.fujitsu.com/imprint.html

The applications do have a default icon assigned to them anyway...

...so it makes sense for the programmer to have some say over what
icon is used, but with the end user having the final say and being
able to change it if they so desire.

Ryan McCoskrie wrote:
Dos-Man 64 wrote:

The reason that I said to look those up is because your dealing with
a different way of thinking about programming.
Embedding icons into executables is a cute idea but also kinda' silly
sounding. Why would you want that kind of a feature on a natively command
line operating system?

Things have advanced in the last 30 odd years.

If the application is one that requires a GUI, it would make perfect
sense.

Dos-Man 64 writes:
The applications do have a default icon assigned to them anyway...

Not necessarily. I use a GUI but have no icons assigned to anything.

...so it makes sense for the programmer to have some say over what
icon is used, but with the end user having the final say and being
able to change it if they so desire.

The programmer can include a default icon in his package without putting
it in the executable. There is no reason to cram everything into one
file.

The programmer can include a default icon in his package without putting
it in the executable.  There is no reason to cram everything into one
file.

The programmer can include a default icon in his package without putting
it in the executable.  There is no reason to cram everything into one
file.

Okay, so I have my executable, but now you say I need a separate file
for the icon. Okay, but that's not convenient to ship. So I package it
into a single installer executable. Now, I need an icon for that
installer executable, and I'm back to having more than one file. So,
again, I need to package it.

Only a way to combine an icon with an executable avoids the need to
distribute more than one file.

On Sep 25, 4:11 am, John Hasler <jhas... at (no spam) newsguy.com> wrote:

The programmer can include a default icon in his package without putting
it in the executable.  There is no reason to cram everything into one
file.

It seems like this creates some impossible requirements. Okay, so I
have my executable, but now you say I need a separate file for the
icon. Okay, but that's not convenient to ship. So I package it into a
single installer executable. Now, I need an icon for that installer
executable, and I'm back to having more than one file. So, again, I
need to package it.

Only a way to combine an icon with an executable avoids the need to
distribute more than one file.

On September 26, 2009 12:43, in comp.os.linux.development.apps, David
Schwartz (davids at (no spam) webmaster.com) wrote:

On Sep 25, 4:11 am, John Hasler <jhas... at (no spam) newsguy.com> wrote:

The programmer can include a default icon in his package without putting
it in the executable. There is no reason to cram everything into one
file.
It seems like this creates some impossible requirements. Okay, so I
have my executable, but now you say I need a separate file for the
icon. Okay, but that's not convenient to ship. So I package it into a
single installer executable. Now, I need an icon for that installer
executable, and I'm back to having more than one file. So, again, I
need to package it.

Only a way to combine an icon with an executable avoids the need to
distribute more than one file.

Long ago, I made an attempt at learning how to write GUI programs with the
Xlib toolkit, and acquired Volume 1 of "Xlib Programming Manual" by Adrian
Nye. In Chapter 3, the author discusses the development of a basic X
application, and presents the associated source code. Part of the
discussion centred around preparing and presenting the icon.

There is no requirement that the icon be stored as a separate file from the
application code. Indeed, the example from the above book has the icon as
an integral part of the binary.

To the OP, the technique outlined in "Xlib Programming Manual" looked like
#define icon_bitmap_width 40
#define icon_bitmap_height 40
static unsigned char icon_bitmap_bits[] = {
0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0xfc, 0xff, 0xff, 0xff, 0x1f, 0xfe, 0xff,
0xff, 0xff, 0x3f, 0xfe, 0xff, 0xff, 0xff, 0x3f, 0xfe, 0xff, 0xff, 0xff,
0x3f, 0xfe, 0xff, 0xff, 0xff, 0x3f, 0x1e, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x3c, 0x1e,
0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x3c, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e,
0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00,
0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x03, 0x3e, 0x60, 0x00, 0xe0, 0x1c,
0x3e, 0x9c, 0x03, 0x98, 0x67, 0x3e, 0xf3, 0x0c, 0xc4, 0x8f, 0xbe, 0xf8,
0x11, 0x98, 0x67, 0x3e, 0xf3, 0x0c, 0xe0, 0x1c, 0x3e, 0x9c, 0x03, 0x00,
0x03, 0x3e, 0x60, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e,
0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00,
0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00,
0x3e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00,
0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00,
0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e,
0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00,
0x00, 0x00, 0x3e, 0x00, 0x00, 0xf8, 0x00, 0x7f, 0x00, 0x1f, 0x20, 0x00,
0x7f, 0x00, 0x04, 0x40, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x02};

...
Display *display;
Window win;
Pixmap icon_pixmap;
char *window_name = "Basic Window Program";
char *icon_name = "basicwin";
XSizeHints *size_hints;
XWMHints *wm_hints;
XClassHint *class_hints;
...
if (!(wm_hints = XAllocWMHints()))
ErrorAbort("failure allocating memory (XAllocWMHints)",NULL);
...
/* Create pixmap of depth 1 (bitmap) for icon */
icon_pixmap = XCreateBitmapFromData(display, win,
icon_bitmap_bits,
icon_bitmap_width,
icon_bitmap_height);
...
wm_hints->icon_pixmap = icon_pixmap;
wm_hints->flags = StateHint | IconPixmapHint | InputHint;
...
XSetWMProperties(display, win,
&windowName,
&iconName,
argv, argc,
size_hints, wm_hints, class_hints);


Perhaps there are parallel methods in the toolkit you used to build your C++
program.

Dos-Man 64 <ChairS... at (no spam) mail.com> wrote:
My understanding is that the icon is inside the windows binary.

Yes.  That is true for Microsoft Windows, but not for Linux. On some versions
of Microsoft Windows, there is an object packaging tool that allows you
to change the embedded icon.

This is not the case in Linux. The icon is a separate entity, and is not
embedded, so you can associate any icon you like with the program,
providing that the window manager supports such a feature.

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley
Linux User: #370818  http://markhobley.yi.org/

That works ok for displaying your icon while running but there's still
no way for a 3rd party like a file manager to get the icon.

My understanding is that the icon is inside the windows binary.

Dos-Man 64 <ChairShot at (no spam) mail.com> wrote:

My understanding is that the icon is inside the windows binary.

Yes. That is true for Microsoft Windows, but not for Linux. On some
versions of Microsoft Windows, there is an object packaging tool that
allows you to change the embedded icon.

This is not the case in Linux. The icon is a separate entity, and is not
embedded, so you can associate any icon you like with the program,
providing that the window manager supports such a feature.