Customizing the Appearance of Applications

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You can modify the appearance of your application without changing your application code by:

  • Changing the default menu system.
  • Changing the default title.
  • Changing the default application icon.

Changing the Default Visual FoxPro Menus

You can add your own menus and menu options to distributed applications by using the Menu Designer. If you don't create your own menu, the run-time environment displays a default Visual FoxPro menu.

Changing the Default Title

Your application runs in the main Visual FoxPro window. By default, the text "Microsoft Visual FoxPro" appears in the title bar.

To customize the title of the main Visual FoxPro window

  • Add the following statement to your configuration file.

    TITLE = cMyTitle

    Replace cMyTitle with the title of the main window of your application.

To include a Visual FoxPro function as part of the title, use the Caption property of the main window as in the following example.

COMMAND=_SCREEN.Caption="Visual FoxPro " + VERSION(4)

Changing the Default Application Icon

After your application is compiled, the default Visual FoxPro icon appears in the Windows Explorer or Start Menu as the application icon. You can use the generic icon that is supplied by Visual FoxPro or design your own.

If you want to display your own icon, create an icon (.ico) file with two images: one small (16-by-16) and one standard (32-by-32). Create both images as 16-color icons.

You can change the default Visual FoxPro icon in the Project Info dialog box of the Project menu.

To change the default application icon using the Project Manager

  1. In the Project Manager Window, select the main file for your project.
  2. From the Project menu, choose Project Info and then select the Project tab.
  3. Choose Attach icon.
  4. Choose Icon and then select an icon (.ico) file to assign to your project.

See Also

Designing Menus and Toolbars | Ensuring Correct Run-Time Behavior | Building Applications