creating an icon to activate the application

[Peter Primrose]

don't know if this is the place to post it but:

I created an application and I 'jared' it. I created a batch file (run)
and I place the command that activate the application.

so everything works fine.

but...the way it looks (the batch file) is, simply put, ugly.

Quesiton: does anyone know how to create an icon (just like in any regular software) that double clicking it will cause the application to run?

Thanks
Peter

[James Swan]

Well a way to do it could be create a shortcut to your *.bat file.
Then right click and bring up the properties dialog, there should be an option to change the icon of the shortcut (aslo being a shortcut, you can rename it to whatever you want).

Maybe of use.

[Peter Primrose]

thanks James; but the solution is not a 100% good.
what if the end-user suppose to do that? not everyone are computer savvy.

any other idea?

[James Swan]

Well you can script most (if not all of what I described).
Have a look at something I was playing around with, basically an ant script that invokes some WScript for creating shortcuts etc on the fly (of course this is intended for windows only) .

Again maybe of use.

(in particular look at the "package" target)

<project name="CashDrawerOpener" default="compile" basedir=".">
  <!-- set global properties for this build -->
  <property name="src" location="src"/>
  <property name="classes" location="classes"/>
  <property name="lib" location="lib"/>
  <property name="distribution" location="distribution"/>  
  <property name="javax.comm.props" location="${lib}/commapi/javax.comm.properties"/>
 
  <target name="init">
    <!-- Create the time stamp -->
    <tstamp/>
    <!-- Create the build directory structure used by compile -->
    <mkdir dir="${classes}"/>
  </target>
 
  <target name="compile" depends="init" description="compile the source ">
    <!-- Compile the java code from ${src} into ${build} -->
    <javac srcdir="${src}" destdir="${classes}">
      <classpath>
        <pathelement location="${lib}/commapi/comm.jar"/> 
      </classpath>
    </javac>
  </target>
 
  <target name="package" depends="compile" description="package into jar" >
    <echo message="Hello, world"/>
    <mkdir dir="${distribution}"/>
    <copy todir="${distribution}">
      <fileset dir="${lib}/commapi"/>
    </copy>
    <copy file="${lib}/commapi/comm.jar" todir="${distribution}/"/>
    <copy file="${javax.comm.props}" todir="${classes}/"/>
    <!-- Main-Class -->
    <jar destfile="${distribution}/cdo.jar" basedir="${classes}">
      <manifest>
        <attribute name="Built-By" value="${user.name}"/>
        <attribute name="Class-Path" value="comm.jar"/>
<attribute name="Main-Class" value="pos.Application"/>
      </manifest>
    </jar>
 
    <!-- create the shortcut in the Start Menu -->
    <exec executable="cmd.exe" os="Windows XP">
      <arg value="/c mklnk.vbs ${distribution}"/>
    </exec>
  </target>
 
  <target name="clean" description="clean up" >
    <!-- Delete the ${build} and ${dist} directory trees -->
    <delete dir="${classes}"/>
    <delete dir="${distribution}"/>
  </target>
</project>

and the script for dynamically creating a shortcut and putting it in the users Start Menu

set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set oArgs = WScript.Arguments
strDistDir = oArgs(0)
strStartMenu = WshShell.SpecialFolders("StartMenu")
set oShellLink = WshShell.CreateShortcut(strStartMenu  & "\Programs\CashDrawerOpener.lnk")
oShellLink.TargetPath = WshShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%JAVA_HOME%") & "\bin\javaw"
oShellLink.Arguments = "-cp " & strDistDir & "\cdo.jar;" & strDistDir & "\comm.jar" & " pos.Application"
oShellLink.WindowStyle = 1
oShellLink.IconLocation = "javaw.exe, 0"
oShellLink.Description = "Cash Drawer Opener"
oShellLink.WorkingDirectory = WshShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%JAVA_HOME%") & "\bin"
oShellLink.Save

[Peter Primrose]

Hi James,

thanks again for your help. You have shown me somthing I have never seen before. How can I run this script? say I save it in a text document, what is the extention I should name it.

thanks again.
Peter

[Richard Anderson]

You can try and use "InstallAnywhere" from ZeroG. I used it on a previous project, and it's a good tool for bundling and distributing Java applications. I would equate it to the Windows Installer for Windows apps. However, it does cost money.

[James Swan]

Hi Peter,

heh, I guess looking at my post again left a few unanswered questions.

1) to run the 2nd script I posted, save it into a file named test.vbs, and run it from a commandline with a parameter
eg. test.vbs temp

What this will do is create a shortcut named "CashDrawerOpener" in your Programs start menu, you can have a look at the contents on the link by right clicking it and viewing the properties (note, I wouldnt recommend trying to run the link as it was setup for my application, but it will demonstrate to you how to dynamically create a link.

2) This does lead into a next question which is are you assuming your user has a JVM already installed or not?
If not then go for Richard's suggestion about using InstallAnywhere, which you'll be able to produce a wizard like install for your app, and be able to bundle a JVM with it.

Good luck,
James.

[Peter Primrose]

I examined both solutions.

1. Richard , ZeroG looks like a good solution but it's expensive.
2. James, your solution looks intresting and I think I should learn more about it (it worked and created the shortcut - although I had to use the command line). Do you know any good tutorial for that?

"This does lead into a next question which is are you assuming your user has a JVM already installed or not?"

Yes, Installed.

another question: is this ANT or VB script?

thank you both
peter

[Layne Lund]

Another possibility is to create an executable JAR file. See this thread for more information. I'm not sure how you can make the JAR file show a custom icon, though. Does anyone else know if there is an option you can add to the JAR's manifest file to do this?

Layne

[James Swan]

Peter,
the first part of my post was ant (it basically kicked off the VBScript as it part of its processing and passed it a parameter).

You can read up more up Windows scripting here:
microsoft script technologies
[ July 20, 2005: Message edited by: James Swan ]