CODEWITHSUNDEEP
airfilesystemsiconsoverlay
Rahul Patwa
Rahul Patwa

Reputation: 2489

Changing OS file icons using AIR app

I am building an AIR app which will be kind of like Dropbox. It will allow users to sync their files between various OSs. What I would like to know is that how can i change the default file system's file icons (add an overlay for eg) for states like - Synced and Syncing, the way Dropbox does it ?? On Windows i found out that Dropbox edits the registry files to insert the overlay icons..not yet sure how they do it in MAC OS X though. I saw some threads here asking similar questions about AIR, but none referencing how to change file's icons. Hoping to get a solution for this from the various experts .. Please suggest any ideas if you know how it can be accomplished. Much thanks.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 128

Answers (1)

user1421930
user1421930

Reputation:

A simple yet effective solution would be to use icons that are only internal to your application : just embed in your application files some transparent pictures representing the various states of your files (with only the small part telling in which state it is, with the rest totally transparent), that you will add at runtime above the displayed icons.

Since you can get the actual icon of your files, just draw them into a BitmapData (if needed) & add an overlay with theses custom images, using the one related to your file's state in your application.

And one step further could be to store in your AIR application folder any resulting icons for future use (check what types of files you already have, and if your new file type isn't in thoses, export the various icons with your custom overlays to PNG files directly on the user device, for re-loading them the next time the application is opened).

Upvotes: 1

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