Creating an Icon - Win32 Programmer's Reference

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Creating an Icon

To use an icon, your application must get the handle of the icon. The following example shows how to create two different icon handles: one for the standard exclamation icon and one for a custom icon included as a resource in the application's resource-definition file.

HICON hIcon1; // icon handle

HICON hIcon2; // icon handle

// Create a standard question icon.

hIcon1 = LoadIcon(NULL, IDI_QUESTION);

// Create a custom icon based on a resource.

hIcon2 = LoadIcon(hinst, MAKEINTRESOURCE(460));

// Create a custom icon at run time.

An application should implement custom icons as resources and should use the LoadIcon or LoadImage function, rather than create the icons at run time. This approach avoids device dependence, simplifies localization, and enables applications to share icon bitmaps. However, the following example uses CreateIcon to create a custom icon at run time, based on bitmap bitmasks; it is included to illustrate how the system interprets icon bitmap bitmasks.

HICON hIcon3; // icon handle

// Yang icon AND bitmask

BYTE ANDmaskIcon[] = {0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, // line 1

0xFF, 0xFF, 0xC3, 0xFF, // line 2

0xFF, 0xFF, 0x00, 0xFF, // line 3

0xFF, 0xFE, 0x00, 0x7F, // line 4

0xFF, 0xFC, 0x00, 0x1F, // line 5

0xFF, 0xF8, 0x00, 0x0F, // line 6

0xFF, 0xF8, 0x00, 0x0F, // line 7

0xFF, 0xF0, 0x00, 0x07, // line 8

0xFF, 0xF0, 0x00, 0x03, // line 9

0xFF, 0xE0, 0x00, 0x03, // line 10

0xFF, 0xE0, 0x00, 0x01, // line 11

0xFF, 0xE0, 0x00, 0x01, // line 12

0xFF, 0xF0, 0x00, 0x01, // line 13

0xFF, 0xF0, 0x00, 0x00, // line 14

0xFF, 0xF8, 0x00, 0x00, // line 15

0xFF, 0xFC, 0x00, 0x00, // line 16

0xFF, 0xFF, 0x00, 0x00, // line 17

0xFF, 0xFF, 0x80, 0x00, // line 18

0xFF, 0xFF, 0xE0, 0x00, // line 19

0xFF, 0xFF, 0xE0, 0x01, // line 20

0xFF, 0xFF, 0xF0, 0x01, // line 21

0xFF, 0xFF, 0xF0, 0x01, // line 22

0xFF, 0xFF, 0xF0, 0x03, // line 23

0xFF, 0xFF, 0xE0, 0x03, // line 24

0xFF, 0xFF, 0xE0, 0x07, // line 25

0xFF, 0xFF, 0xC0, 0x0F, // line 26

0xFF, 0xFF, 0xC0, 0x0F, // line 27

0xFF, 0xFF, 0x80, 0x1F, // line 28

0xFF, 0xFF, 0x00, 0x7F, // line 29

0xFF, 0xFC, 0x00, 0xFF, // line 30

0xFF, 0xF8, 0x03, 0xFF, // line 31

0xFF, 0xFC, 0x3F, 0xFF}; // line 32

// Yang icon XOR bitmask

BYTE XORmaskIcon[] = {0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 1

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 2

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 3

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 4

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 5

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 6

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 7

0x00, 0x00, 0x38, 0x00, // line 8

0x00, 0x00, 0x7C, 0x00, // line 9

0x00, 0x00, 0x7C, 0x00, // line 10

0x00, 0x00, 0x7C, 0x00, // line 11

0x00, 0x00, 0x38, 0x00, // line 12

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 13

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 14

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 15

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 16

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 17

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 18

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 19

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 20

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 21

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 22

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 23

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 24

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 25

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 26

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 27

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 28

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 29

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 30

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, // line 31

0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00}; // line 32

hIcon3 = CreateIcon(hinst, // application instance

32, // icon width

32, // icon height

1, // number of XOR planes

1, // number of bits per pixel

ANDmaskIcon, // AND bitmask

XORmaskIcon); // XOR bitmask

To create the icon, CreateIcon applies the following truth table to the AND and XOR bitmasks.

AND bitmask	XOR bitmask	Display
0	0	Black
0		White
	0	Screen
		Reverse screen

Before closing, your application must use DestroyIcon to destroy any icon it created by using CreateIconIndirect. It is not necessary to destroy icons created by other functions.

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