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hi, how can i get the icon associated with a certain file type? thanks

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-iwdu15


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I had this document, it should help you.







How many times have you created your own application and wondered,

"Gee, this thing creates data files--how can I associate my data file

with my application, so that when a user double-click on the data file,

my application starts up and runs it?"



Well, you probably didn't think quite like that, but if you use Word,

you know that if you double-click on a "*.doc" file, Word opens up and

*poof* there's your document.



Introduction

So how do you do that with VB.NET?



There are two ways, the easy way and the hard way. The easy way is best

because if your application gets uninstalled, so will your file

associations. But, you might have occasion to need the hard way. I'll

cover the hard way in a later faq.



Walk Through

The easy way



1. Open up your solution in Visual Studio. If you don't have Visual

Studio, I guess you're out of luck and have to use the hard way.



If you haven't already, add a Setup Project to your solution by File,

Add Project, New Project, Setup & Deployment Projects, Setup Project.



2. Right-click on your setup project in the "Solution Explorer" window,

select "View", then select "File Types".



You'll see the "File Types" window displayed in Visual Studio. At the

top of the window will be "File Types on Target Machine".



3. Right-click on "File Types on Target Machine". The menu will pop up

with "Add File Type" Click on this.



You will see "New Document Type #1" added, with "&Open" underneath it.



4. The "New Document Type #1" can be anything you want--change it to

something descriptive. Although the user never sees this, never use

something common--be as unique as possible, because you can overlay

current file associations without even realizing it. For example, you

might think "pngfile" might be a useful name--but using that will now

send all "*.png" files to your application, instead of to an image

viewer. A good practice may be to use "YourCompanyName.FileType", where

"YourCompanyName" is your name or your company's name, and "FileType"

is a descriptive text of your file.



5. In the "Properties" window for your new type, you will need to

change a few properties:



command: Change to the application you want to run. If you click

on the "...", you will be given your choices, and you will probably

want to locate and use the "Primary Output ..." file.

Description: This is what will show up when your file type is

seen in Windows Explorer.

Extensions: This is your list of extensions to associate with

this file type. You can list any number of extensions, just separate

with a comma, and you don't need to use a period. Avoid, at all costs,

using a common extension (such as ".doc"), because you will overwrite

any pre-existing types!

Icon: This will associate an icon with your file type, that

shows up in Windows Explorer.



6. Are we there yet? Almost--now we move on to that "&Open". This is an

action that is available if your right-click on the file. The default

action ("&Open" is currently set as the default) is what happens when

you double-click on the file. Right-click on your "New Document Type

#1" to add actions, but for the moment, lets define our "&Open" action.





Click on "&Open". You will see in the Properties window "Name",

"Arguments", "Verb". Verb is hidden from the user, but is the key that

is stored in the registry. Leave it the same as the name, but without

the "&". The default for "Arguments" is "%1", which means to pass the

full path and filename to your application. You can add other stuff

here as well, if you need to pass flags to your application to do

special stuff. All this information is getting passed to your

application on the command line, so you'll need to be familiar with the

"Environment.CommandLine" object.

If you need to set a different action as your default, just

right-click on the action and select "Set as Default"



Conclusion

And that's it. Now, when you build your setup project, the file

associations will be included, so that when a user installs your

application, the associations will be installed as well, and if

(hopefully never) the user uninstalls your application, then the

associations will be removed.



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