Crossplatform Program Icons

Quote:

Original post by Wavesonics Hey, I was wondering how to set the program (exe) icon for different platforms. I've done it for Win32 b4 using the resource file. But is that cross platform?

Use and external picture and load it as a resource in Win32 and load it as a pic for the cross-platform.

OK, Im using SDL so for the window icon I use an SDL function which sets it for me.

But what I mean is the Icon for executable file as seen in a file browser. Is that what you are saying?

The problem is that Linux doesn't have a standard way of doing things. So you may be using Gnome, KDE or something which isn't a complete desktop environment. KDE and Gnome have their own file browser so, I believe (it's been a while since I've done any development for Linux), they each have their own way of displaying icons. Having the icon embedded in the executable like in Windows would be nice I think, but it's probably seen as bloat. Check out www.freedesktop.org, they are trying to create a standard for free desktop environments I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, I'm still interested in developing for Linux but have simply gotten behind.

Also, you can usually trust your Linux users a little more, and leave the icons in ${PREFIX}/share/icons/ after an install, or in a subdirectory from the build path called icons/, and they should be able to sort it out themselves.

There are some comments here about icons on Linux (and OS X). The freedesktop.org Desktop Entry Specification and the Icon Them Specification look like they're relevant.