How to set the application icon on Windows using cmake ?

QtVik

Hello,
I am trying to set the application icon using .rc file and ico for icon.
But i need the correct cmake command to set the icon file to exe.

.rc file contains as below:
IDI_ICON1 ICON DISCARDABLE "appicon.ico"

Following is what i have in my cmake file:

SET(WINDOWS_RESOURCE_PATH ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/appicon.rc)
QT5_ADD_RESOURCES(RESOURCE ${WINDOWS_RESOURCE_PATH})
QT5_WRAP_CPP(SAMPLEAPP_HDRS_MOC ${SAMPLEAPP_HDRS_QT_MOC})
ADD_EXECUTABLE(SampleApp ${SAMPLEAPP_SRCS} ${SAMPLEAPP_HDRS_MOC} ${WINDOWS_RESOURCE_PATH})

But i am getting following error:
Error 1 error : 'C:/SampleApp/appicon.rc' Line: 1 Column: 1 [Start tag expected.] C:\SampleApp\buildQt541_win64-trunk\CUSTOMBUILD

Please let me know what am I doing wrong here.
or Please share a sample code to do the same.

Thank you.

SGaist

Hi,

Did you check that your file contains the correct white spaces ?

ambershark

@QtVik That's not how you add windows resources.

qt5_add_resources() is for qrc files or Qt Resources.

To add your rc to your exe, you just do:

add_executable(${PROJECT_NAME} ${SRCS} project.rc)

project.rc would be whatever you name your resource file.

SGaist

@ambershark good catch ! I missed that one.

ambershark

@SGaist Hah yea I did too at first then I double checked one of my projects to be sure before posting that. ;)

QtVik

Dear @ambershark @SGaist ,

Thank you so much for your answers.
It really worked :)

Pradeep Kumar

Hi @QtVik

@SGaist , @ambershark thanks for the answer for using cmake.
@QtVik can u mark as solved, so the others users can get the solution for the above mentioned post.

Thanks,

QtVik

Hello @ambershark @SGaist ,
It worked fine on windows.
But I am unable to see the icon on Linux.
Is there any different trick to make it work on Linux ?

Hello @Pradeep-Kumar ,
Shall I mark this as solved after I receive answer on Linux issue?

ambershark

@QtVik Well that's kind of a different question. Linux doesn't use rc files like windows does.

There are a few different things for setting icons in linux. There is the application icon that you set with a call to QApplication::setIcon or QWindow::setIcon.

Then there is the window manager icon. That depends on which desktop you want to support. Here is help on that http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/appicon.html.

But what I mostly do is just set it in the desktop entry file I use for my app.

I.e.

[Desktop Entry]
Name=My App
Type=Application
Exec=/path/to/my/app
Icon=/path/to/my/icon/file.png
Comment=My cool app

That's like the linux equivalent of a shortcut in windows. It will set your icon for you.

QtVik

Thank you so much @ambershark .
I was more concerned about the window manger Icon.
Will try it out.