Changing the platform theme could alter the color of the Portable Apps icon that is used in the taskbar and/or the system tray. For example, changing to a green theme could make the icon tinted green; a light theme could leave the arrow lightly colored where a dark theme could make the arrow dark.
This could make it easier when there is more than one PA.c platforms running, perhaps one locally and one from USB. The user could have the default theme on the local install and a blue theme on the USB. It would be easy to tell them apart, even when they are hidden.
Upon changing the theme, the platform could open the icons inside the exe and change their color values. This could avoid having a vast number of similar images where the only difference is the color.
I know "Customizable systray icon" on the bug report and feature tracker page is planned for future platform release, but I thought this concept might merit additional consideration.
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As this feature is already requested and noted in the tracker, there's no need to create a duplicate request for it.
You won't be able to match the color to the theme as we don't currently have a way to procedurally generate the required ICO files. If you're aware of some code we can utilize to do so, please let us know.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
This could be useful: http://www.imagemagick.org/
From the website:
"With a language interface, use ImageMagick to modify or create images dynamically and automagically.
ImageMagick is free software delivered as a ready-to-run binary distribution or as source code that you may use, copy, modify, and distribute in both open and proprietary applications. It is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license, approved by the OSI and recommended for use by the OSSCC."
I'm unsure if it could procedurally generate the required ICO files, but it should be able to alter the files on the fly. If the ico can be extracted from the exe with 7za, ImageMagick could be scripted to alter the icon, then I suppose 7za would have to embed the icon back into the exe.
If 7za would not work, there is Resource Extract from NirSoft. It is hosted on SourceForge. https://sourceforge.net/projects/resourcextract/files/
The icon could be extracted, processed, then it would need to be embedded back into the exe again.
If the binary offset of the icon inside the exe is known, it might be possible to change the color value directly by changing a few bytes of the exe itself, similar to hex editing.
Even if it is not built into the platform, maybe it could be an app to allow the user to change the icon color, etc.
These are just suggestions. I know there are actual complications that may or may not be worth overcoming for this small convenience. Thank you for taking the time to reply and for your consideration.
You are more than welcome to begin working on coding to implement such a feature if you've found something that may work. At present, I don't have much time and there are far more pressing issues on the list for the platform than writing a custom ICO creator. When I implement it, I'll likely just implement a single custom switch, which handles the small niche of people that run multiple platforms.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!