To add an icon to simple mode, there's a few steps you need to follow:

1:  _create_ the icon, in each of it's separate "display" modes. 
    This would be a series of six 120x120 pixel .png images with alpha chanel transparency.
    (one with just the icon, and five "highlited" versions) 
    "Blank" templates have been provided for each of the highlighted versions, in the /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/ directory, named as follows:

icon_background.png

accessibility_icon_background.png

business_icon_background.png

home_icon_background.png

student_icon_background.png



You need to first pick the graphic for your icon, and then create it as a blank one.  My icon was for activating the Remote Desktop program that's already installed on the Eee, so I used the graphic normally associated with it in Windows, and made my base icon from it.  The base icon should be named something related to your program, and ending in _norm.png, so here's my rdesk_norm.png:

I've made one error in this icon, which I'll explain later - it's not obvious yet, but once it's finished it's easy to spot.  (Learn from my mistakes!) Also, the edges of the icon are anti-aliased using the .png format's alpha chanel, so that they'll blend into whatever colour the background may be.

Next, you need to apply your icon to a copy of each of the coloured highlight backgrounds, and save them.  The first one, based on "icon_background.png" should be named 'program'_hi.png (where 'program' is your name).  My rdesk_hi.png looks like this:

Notice that the icon itself is in exactly the same location - I've simply merged the two images together, so that the background shows through the translucent areas.  After you've created the first "merged" images, the rest of them follow a very specific naming convention - the one you merge with accessibility_icon_background.png should be named accessibility_'program'_hi.png (again, where 'program' is your chosen name), and so on - each of the 'group'_icon_background images needs a corresponding 'group'_'program'_hi.png output.  Here are mine:


accessibility_rdesk_hi.png

business_rdesk_hi.png

home_rdesk_hi.png

student_rdesk_hi.png



2: Now that we actually have an icon, we need to put those files into the /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/ directory along with the others.  (IMPORTANT: keep a backup of them, in case you need to restore them for any reason.)

3: Next, we need to add the icon configuration to the file /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc - first though, make a backup!!!!! - otherwise if you mess anything up, you may need to restore your EeePC from scratch, and all of your work is gone.  This file is an XML file, and the format for it is very simple - the <simpleui> tag wraps around the whole file, then there's a series of <simplecat> and <parcel> tags, which each  create either a tab group, or an icon respectively.  The easiest to deal with are the icons, and that's what we're looking for here anyways.  To add an icon for my rdesk program, here's what I needed to do.  First, I need the actual linux shell command that's going to be run - in my case, that was /usr/bin/rdesktop -g800x480 -f 192.168.0.123 to run rdesktop and log into my local windows server, with the screen size forced to the EeePC's 800x480 resolution.  You need to include the full UNIX path to the initial command, otherwise it may not find the program you're looking for.  We also need to  decide which tab we're putting the icon under.  Our initial choices are: Internet, Work, Learn, Play, Settings, and Favorites.  In my case, rdesktop is a network program, so I'm going to go with the Internet tab.
  Here's what the resulting <parcel> looks like, with my command, tab, and the image names highlighted appropriately:

<parcel simplecat="Internet" extraargs="/usr/bin/rdesktop -g800x480 -f 192.168.0.123"
    icon="rdesk_norm.png"
    selected_icon="rdesk_hi.png">
      <name lang="en">Remote Desktop</name>
      <name lang="zh_TW">Remote Desktop</name>
      <name lang="zh_CN">Remote Desktop</name>
      <desc lang="en">Windows Terminal Server Login</desc>
</parcel>

The <name> tags inside create the icon name which shows up on the desktop, and you should include one for each language you may end up booting in. (I included the two chinese ones here as examples, mainly because they're the ones used most often in the original simpleui.rc itself.)  The <desc> tag should be a very short description of what the icon is for. More descriptive than the icon title, but shorter than a full wikipedia entry.

The last part of this step involves inserting your new <parcel> into the simpleui.rc file - put it at the end, just before the closing </simpleui> tag.  (It must be on the inside of that tag! Otherwise it breaks the file and your interface will either ignore it, or won't work at all.)

4:  The final step, hit <ctrl><alt><backspace> to reset your X-windows server.  It's not a full reboot, but reloading the X server makes it re-read the configuration files.  Assuming all is done correctly, your new icon should appear, like this:


And now of course, my own error becomes obvious - always remember to leave some blank space at the bottom of your new icon for the icon's name to show up in on the desktop...

Oh, one thing I almost forgot to mention - the method above only works until the first time you upgrade your software or install a new package - then you'll need to re-insert the <parcel> tag in the simpleui.rc file. (The icon images survive that fine)  I'm still looking (in what little spare time I have, so slowly) for the place to put the new data so that it will survive something else being installed.

Also, if you don't want to create your own icon, there are a lot of them already created in the /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/ directory, feel free to use them as well if one of them suits you.  You just need to include the name of the *_norm.png and *_hi.png versions in the right places.  The Asus Launcher will fill in the student_, home_, and so on automatically.

Last edited by Happyhead (2007-11-26 9:49:59 am)

If I can manage to figure it out, I'll put something together for the Wiki.  Because of the permanence problem though, this is really only part of a solution...

Thanks for the great tip! I've created some icons following your instructions here:

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=37401

Niel1952 wrote:

Surely, if you create backups somewhere else of simpleui.rc  whenever you have a working configuration you like, you can just copy that backup over simpleui.rc after an upgrade and you will not need to rekey your changes?

The trouble with doing things that way is if one of the package updates changes the parameters passed into it's respective program, and you restore the simpleui.rc file to the one from before, then those changed parameters will be broken, and that icon on your desktop may not work anymore.  I'd rather have a more permanent solution that actually inserted the related data where the simpleui.rc file is being created _from_, so that none of that is necesary.

Following some playing about, I've found that the AsusLauncher application first looks for the simpleui.rc file in the ~/,AsusLauncher directory prior to that found in /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/

To achieve this, open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) then type:

cp /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc ~/.AsusLauncher/

Also, it would appear that the easy mode menu is updated via the package asus-categories_<version>_i386.deb in the asus repository.

It would appear that these will update the simpleui.rc file held in /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/ rather than that stored off of your home directory, although this still needs to be verified.

It seems that the icons don't have to be moved from /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/

Hope that some of this info helps.

Best regards,

Matt

Last edited by mattharris (2007-12-13 4:16:07 pm)

n4sa wrote:

for some reason i am getting permission problems in /opt/xandros/shared/asuslauncher/

i cannot edit simpleui.rc or paste .png files into it..
I have tried chmod, but no luck.. any ideas?

use root status

In the console, type "sudo bash", and then do the copying in the console (ie: "cd /home/usr/MMC-SD/partition1/whereveryourimageis/"  followed by "cp file.png /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/" )

Argh! Thanks for all the great work here, it's really appreciated. But as someone new to Linux, I'm terrified that something as simple as adding an icon to the desktop is this complicated!

I'm asking a big favour here, but please could someone make a wiki of this in nice simple language?

Also, is there any software than can be downloaded to make this easier? Apparently someone in taiwan has made one in Chinese - http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=61143#p61143

Thanks!

alanomaly,

But as someone new to Linux, I'm terrified that something as simple as adding an icon to the desktop is this complicated!

Actually it's not difficult in Linux. In any normal version of linux, setting up icons is simple.

This is the special AsusLauncher program only that Asus has made that's complicated it. In simplifying it for us theyve made it more difficult.

Of course, you have to create and copy ALL the icons !!! :-)

mvalent wrote:

Of course, you have to create and copy ALL the icons !!! :-)

If you are not going to change themes, you only need the ones for the theme you use but, in principle, it is better to do the lot.

Couple questions on this subject. First, can I make a folder within a folder? Using <folder SimpleCat="Play/Games" id="Tribes" . . . doesn't seem to work, it doesn't show up.

Second question, can anyone help me get the following to work?

<parcel simplecat="Play/Games" extraargs="/media/Flash Voyager/CORSAIR/elc-150/el.x86.linux.bin"
    icon="eternallands_norm.png" 
    selected_icon="eternallands_hi.png">
    <name lang="en">Eternal Lands</name>
    <desc lang="en">A skill-based MMORPG.</desc>
</parcel>

<parcel simplecat="Play/Games" extraargs="/media/Flash Voyager/CORSAIR/Tribes2/tribes2 -online"
    icon="eternallands_norm.png" 
    selected_icon="eternallands_hi.png">
    <name lang="en">Tribes 2 Online</name>
    <desc lang="en">A scifi first person shooter with jetpacks.</desc>
</parcel>

They're not showing up. They did when I had them pointing to Solitaire (All I've changed is what they point to), but now they've disappeared. I've checked capitalization, but I don't know what else to do.

Last edited by Hazor (2008-01-01 1:39:54 am)