Test Application Icons

Test_Application_Icons.exe is a simple program to check how Windows uses application icons of various sizes. The associated icon resource contains 8 icons in the following order.

Default Icon (100x100)

256x256

128x128

64x64

48x48

32x32

24x24

16x16

Unlike normal application icons which are similar in appearance, each of these icons is unique and indicates what size it is.

The basic idea is to place the application in some directory and just try and see which icon is displayed under various conditions.

Basically, running the application places

A 16x16 icon in the taskbar and the window title bar
A 32x32 icon in the alt-tab selector

In Windows Explorer, the following icon sizes are used by the associated view options

16x16 - Details & List
32x32 - Icons
48x48 - Thumbnails & Tiles

The other icons were never displayed in Windows XP, except that the AboutBox explicitly requests the 64x64 icon.

This zip file contains both the exe and the associated ico file.

I have additional pages on icons, Creating icons with GIMP, and Application branding.

Application

Press F1 to see the AboutBox.

Code

The code for this is extremely simple. Place, name, and size 8 TImage components - and load the icons.

procedure setIcon(Image: Timage; size: integer);
begin
  Image.Picture.Icon.Handle :=
         LoadImage(MainInstance, 'MAINICON', IMAGE_ICON, size, size, 0);
end;

procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
  setIcon(Image16,     16);
  setIcon(Image24,     24);
  setIcon(Image32,     32);
  setIcon(Image48,     48);
  setIcon(Image64,     64);
  setIcon(Image128,   128);
  setIcon(Image256,   256);
  setIcon(ImageDefault, 0);
end;

The AboutBox was added and populated by just adding a custom action to the form. It displays the 64x64 image.

Author: Robert Clemenzi