custom runtime icon?

[Mark H.]

Does anyone know of a way to use someting other than the standard FileMaker icon when deploying a runtime solution? This is very important for my current project (using FMP9).

Thanks

[Genx]

Hi Mark,

Unfortunately no - no way to change the icon, its really annoying to. I'd suggest shoving your logo somewhere big on stage so it outweighs the fm icon in the top left corner.

[pjdodd]

On a Mac it is very easy to change the icon to something custom.

1) First of all create your new icon following the guidelines/style that Apple created (Iconogrpaher is a great program for this). Call it FMApp.icns.

2) Create your runtime.

3) Ctrl click on the Runtime (NOT the database) and select Show Package contents. Open the Contents folder. Open the Resources folder. Copy/overwrite the FMApp.icns in there with your own custom icon.

Voila!

If you want cheat and have ALL your runtimes with the same custom icon, navigate to the Filemaker application directly and find the runtime templates folder. Repeat stage 3 on the file called Runtime.

[Genx]

Hmm, well there you go. learn something new everyday.

[Mark H.]

Excellent, thanks for the Mac instructions!

Now if I can find a way to do it on the PC as well (my app is dual-platform). I think I've seen some 3rd-party utility programs that will diractly extract & replace icons in an EXE, not sure though -- more research.

Although there are these workarounds, I hope that FMI will soon allow for custom icons in the runtime packaging process, where it belongs. Also, a way to suppress the closing splash screen and put the "portions copyright [blah] FileMaker" in small print at the bottom of the Help/About dialog makes more sense too -- especially when one is making a retail/commercial app.

Other than these things, I must say that I really like FMP 8 & 9, after being away from FMP for many years.

[Mark H.]

I noticed the following statement in section 1(h) of the FMP 9 Advanced license:

"As an express condition of this License, you must reproduce on each copy the FMI trademark, copyright and any other proprietary legends (collectively "Notices") that were on the original copy supplied by FMI..."

As I noted in another post, I am designing a retail software product and need to replace the standard FileMaker executable icon in my runtime with my own custom icon (found several ways to do this on both Mac and PC). And on the PC, I'd also want to modify the exe version properties to display my company and product name instead of "FileMaker, Inc." (the dialog you get when you right-click on your packaged runtime exe file and select "Properties" and then the "Version" tab).

So if I made these modifications and distributed my solution as such, it sounds like I would violate the runtime license agreement...or maybe FMI is referring to something else and I'm reading too much into it?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

:)

[Lee Smith]

I merged your two topics, they are about the same thing. In the future, just Reply to your existing Topic when you have a follow up question.

TIA

Lee

[pjdodd]

As I understand it you ARE allowed to modify the icon of your solution but you MUST NOT alter the blurb about Filemaker owning portions of the solution. That has to stay. It's crudely done and I don't like it so prominent in a runtime but if you hack it out of the solution Filemaker will sue....and win.

[Mark H.]

Thanks for the confirmation, that's what I feared. I have no problem with the "portions by FileMaker" blurb in the Help/About dialog box, but being forced to display that closing splash screen with the prominent FMI logo at the bottom, and the Windows version always showing the FMI logo icon in the upper-left corner of the window -- that really kills the presentation for a cross-platform retail app like I'm designing [sigh]. I've liked what I have seen of FMP9 so much, and it's sad that they'd throw this wrench in (Microsoft has started to do a very similar thing with Access -- a forced banner display). Back to looking at REALbasic as an alternative...

Anyway, thanks for all the info!

Mark H.

[SteveB]

See this site for a Win solution (maybe)

Link

Steve

[Genx]

Okay, I don't really do run times, but isn't the closing splash screen customizable?

[Vaughan]

Am I missing something: why is this such a problem?