Question

This was an interview question. Given Visual Studio 2008 and an icon saved as a .PNG file, they required the image as an embedded resource and to be used as the icon within the title bar of a form.

I’m looking for what would have been the model answer to this question, Both (working!) code and any Visual Studio tricks. (Model answer is one that should get me the job if I meet it next time around.)

Specifically I don’t know how to load the image once it is an embedded resource nor how to get it as the icon for the title bar.

As a part solution, ignoring the embedded bit, I copied the resource to the ouput directory and tried the following:-

public partial class Form1 : Form {     public Form1()     {         InitializeComponent();         this.Icon = new Icon('Resources\\IconImage.png');     } } 

This failed with the error ‘Argument ‘picture’ must be a picture that can be used as a Icon.’

I presuming that the .PNG file actually needed to be a .ICO, but I couldn’t see how to make the conversion. Is this presumption correct or is there a different issue?

Answer 1

Fire up VS, start new Windows Application. Open the properties sheet, add the .png file as a resource (in this example: glider.png ). From hereon, you can access the resource as a Bitmap file as WindowsFormsApplication10.Properties.Resources.glider

Code for using it as an application icon:

 public Form1()         {             InitializeComponent();             Bitmap bmp = WindowsFormsApplication10.Properties.Resources.glider;             this.Icon = Icon.FromHandle(bmp.GetHicon());         }