Icon Creation

Standard icons are predefined, so it is not necessary to create them. To use a standard icon, an application can obtain its handle by using the LoadImage function. An icon handle is a unique value of the HICON type that identifies a standard or custom icon.

To create a custom icon for an application, developers typically use a graphics application and include the ICON resource in the application's resource-definition file. At run time, an application can call LoadIcon or LoadImage to retrieve the handle of the icon. An icon resource contains data for several different display devices. LoadIcon and LoadImage automatically select the most appropriate data for the current display device.

An application can also create a custom icon at run time by using the CreateIconIndirect function, which creates an icon based on the contents of an ICONINFO structure. The GetIconInfo function fills the structure with the hot spot coordinates and information about the bitmask bitmap and color bitmap for the icon.

Applications should implement custom icons as resources and should use LoadIcon or LoadImage, rather than create the icon at run time. Using icon resources avoids device dependence, simplifies localization, and enables applications to share icon shapes.

The CreateIconFromResourceEx function enables an application to browse through the system's resources and create icons and cursors based on resource data. CreateIconFromResourceEx creates an icon based on binary resource data from other executable files or dynamic-link libraries (DLLs). An application must precede this function with calls to the LookupIconIdFromDirectoryEx function and several of the resource functions. LookupIconIdFromDirectoryEx returns the identifier of the most appropriate icon data for the current display device. For more information about the resource functions, see Resource Functions.

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