7.3. Create and Attach an Icon and Label

When your application is installed (on either the emulator or a real device), an icon and a label are placed on the Application Launcher that is part of your Android Desktop. This is how most users will launch your application, so you need a small graphic (in the form of a PNG file) for the icon, and a short label for your program. Icons are small square (64x64 pixel) pictures. Figure 7-1 shows the one we used for MJAndroid.

The icon and the label are both assigned in the AndroidManifest.xml file. Here is the section of the file for MJAndroid that defines the icon (in the file icon2.png, located under the res/drawable directory) and the label (from the strings.xml file under res/values):

    <application android:icon="@drawable/icon2" android:debuggable="true">
      <uses-library android:name="com.google.android.maps" />
        <activity android:name=".MicroJobs" android:label="@string/app_name">
            <intent-filter>
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