Customizing Graphics for SMS Custom Inventory Objects

As you can see from my custom graphic in Screen 8 (under Name and to the left of HP Printer 1), I'm not much of an artist. Fortunately, VC++ makes it easy to borrow from existing graphics so you don't have to create bitmaps and icons from scratch. Let's start by swiping some graphics from NT's surplus of neat icons and bitmaps.

1. Assuming VC++ is running and the SMSCust project is open with Screen 9 (page 149) showing, select File, Open from the VC++ me
2. In the Open dialog box, select Executable Files (*.exe,*.dll,*.ocx) in the Files of Type drop-down list box, and choose Resources in the Open As drop-down list box.
3. Navigate the Open dialog box to your NT System32 subdirectory (e.g., c:\winnt\system32). On NT 4.0, find the file shell32.dll (if you're running an earlier version of NT, look for progman.exe or main.cpl). Select this file, check the Open as Read-Only box to protect it from accidental change, and click Open.
4. In the right pane of VC++, you'll see several folders under the shell32.dll folder. Expand the Icon folder, which you see in Screen 9. (Notice that all the numbers are resource names.)
5. Now you can start pilfering resources. I happen to know that the number 17 resource contains several good printer resources, and number 173 reminds me of fonts. Drag these resources onto the SMSCust resources script folder in the left pane. VC++ automatically creates an Icon folder under SMSCust resources and .ico files in the project subdirectory. VC++ generates the filenames from the resource names, so you don't have to worry about them.
6. You'll want to rename these resources from their exciting numeric names. Let's change 17 to "PDG_PRINTER_PRINTER_DETAILS" and 173 to "PDG_STD_PRINTER_FONTS". You change these names the same way you previously changed the bitmap name to "PRINTER_PRINTER". Right-click the Icons, and choose Properties from the Context menu. Change the ID: fields to "PDG_PRINTER_PRINTER_DETAILS" and "PDG_STD_PRINTER_FONTS" (remember to include the quotes).
7. Close shell32.dll, and save your project files (select File, Save All from the VC++ menu).
8. Select Build, Build SMSCust.dll from the VC++ menu to incorporate the new resources into smscust.dll.
9. Copy smscust.dll from the Release subdirectory into c:\smsres. Close the SMS Administrator, and restart it. You will still see the Printer bitmap representing HP Printer 1 in the SMS Administrator Sites window.
10. Open the properties window for HP Printer 1. You will see the custom graphics, as in Screen 10.

Congratulations! Not only have you created a professional looking result in SMS, you're also a C++ programmer! As I promised, you didn't have to do any coding beyond what you had to enter for smscust.cpp (and we stole that from the SMS software development kit--SDK). If you have VC++, you don't even need that code. You can create a blank file, name it smscust.cpp, and add it to the SMSCust project, and VC++ will automatically generate the DllMain code behind the scenes. Say, what do all these C++ programmers do anyway?

You can try adding icons and bitmaps using the naming conventions I've described in this article. For example, we didn't add anything specific for the Laser Printer role. Try out some of these combinations.

If you put in a little work, you can have some very intuitive graphics for specific types of objects and generic catch-alls as you add new inventory. An interesting DLL to peruse for graphics is the SMS standard resource DLL, smsres.dll. You'll find most of the SMS icons and bitmaps there, including some that have Hermes in their names (Hermes was Microsoft's code name for SMS). You can override these standard SMS graphics. The sample in the SMS SDK makes some of these standard objects look like a human eye--interesting, but kind of eerie!

My next article will explain how you can add personnel data such as employee name, title, and department to the SMS inventory database directly from a human resources database. You can then use this information to associate workstations with a user or department. This ability is useful when you are distributing software based on organizational needs.

LISTING 1: The regscrpt.ini Script File

	\Registry\Machine\Software\Microsoft\SMS 
	ResDlls
	Installed = REG_MULTI_SZ "DLLNum1" "DLLNum2"
	DLLNum1 
	PathName = REG_SZ myres.dll 
	DLLNum2 
	PathName = REG_SZ myicons.dll 
	DLLNum3 
	PathName = REG_SZ notready.dll