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Associating Icons with a Category

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Building a user interface that allows the user to select component categories within a category requires the ability to display a meaningful image for a particular category. To associate an icon with a component category, create a key for the category's CATID and populate that key with a DefaultIcon subkey. The registry entry is as follows:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{...catid...}\DefaultIcon = "c:\hello\icons.dll,1"

The filename referenced by the DefaultIcon key can be either an EXE or a DLL file (resource-only DLL).

To associate a small 16x16 "toolbox bitmap" with a component category, create a key in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID for the category's CATID and populate that key with a ToolBoxBitmap32 subkey, as shown in the following example:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{...catid...}\ToolBoxBitmap32 = "c:\goodbye\mycomponent.dll,42"

The filename referenced by the ToolBoxBitmap32 key can also be an EXE or DLL file (resource-only DLL).

Categorizing by Component Capabilities

Categorizing by Container Capabilities

Default Classes and Associations

Defining Component Categories

ICatInformation

ICatRegister

The Component Categories Manager