Section 8.3.  Customizing the Launcher - Eclipse Rich Client Platform: Designing, Coding, and Packaging Java Applications

8.3. Customizing the Launcher

The launcher is the program that end-users run when they want to start Hyperbola, for example, hyperbola.exe on Windows. You could just use the launcher that comes with Eclipse, but of course, you don't want to tell users to "double-click on eclipse.exe" to run Hyperbolayou want a hyperbola.exe for them to run. Further, the Eclipse launcher has Eclipse icons associated with it. It makes more sense that these be Hyperbola-specific icons.

To set this up, use the Program Launcher section on the Branding page of the product editor as shown in Figure 8-8.

The Launcher Name box allows you to enter the simple name of the launcher. You should not append ".exe". That information is platform-dependent and PDE takes care of it when the product is exported.

The next section contains a series of entry fields for identifying the icons associated with Hyperbola's launcher. It turns out that each OS requires different image sizes and formats so the product editor has a section for the supported OS. These sections are initially collapsed, but if you click on the OS name, the section related to the OS expands. Figure 8-8 shows the sections for linux, macosx, and windows expanded, but the section for solaris is collapsed.

Fill in the image names for the OSs in which you are interested. The Hyperbola images are in the sample files you imported earlier in the branding folder. The launcher images are used in the process of exporting the products. During export, PDE creates a launcher program that behaves exactly like the standard Eclipse launcher but is named hyperbola and is branded with the icons you specified. We talk about launcher branding here to complete the branding story, but you cannot test it until the next chapter where you learn how to export Hyperbola.