Set application icon using CMake on Windows

Introduction

In the previous tutorial we managed to simply set the application icon using QMake. In this tutorial, we will learn how to set the icon of an application using CMake scripts.

Setup and Configuration

Before we can start writing CMake scripts we need to create a resource(.rc file). To create a .rc file, right-click in your current source directory where the CMakeLists.txt exists and choose a new document. Rename the new document to “appicon.rc”. Open the .rc file in an editor and paste this line in it:

IDI_ICON1 ICON DISCARDABLE "appicon.ico"

Make sure appicon.ico exists in the current source directory as well. If you do not have a .ico file. You can create one here.

Now, we just need to add this .rc file in our CMake script like:

set(APP_ICON_RESOURCE_WINDOWS "${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/appicon.rc")

add_executable(${PROJECT_NAME}
        WIN32
        main.cpp
        ${APP_ICON_RESOURCE_WINDOWS}
    )

When you build and run the application, you will see the icon on the top-left corner of the window, and also the icon is set on the executable(.exe) itself.

Conclusion

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Photo by Harpal Singh on Unsplash