Chapter 11 Resources

11.1 About Resources

A resource is binary data that the resource compiler or developer adds to an application's executable file. A resource can either be standard or user-defined. The data in a standard resource describes an icon, cursor, menu, dialog box, bitmap, font, keyboard accelerator table, message-table entry, string-table entry, or version data. A user-defined resource, also called a custom resource, contains any data required by a specific application.

This chapter describes the Win32 resource functions. These functions enable applications to find a resource in a module; load a resource into memory; add, delete or replace a resource in an executable file; and generate a list of the resources contained in a module.

For information about how to create standard resources, refer to the following chapters:

Resource Chapter

bitmap Chapter 63 “Bitmaps”
cursor Chapter 52 “Mouse Cursors”
dialog box Chapter 49 “Dialog Boxes”
font Chapter 69 “Fonts and Text”
keyboard accelerator table Chapter 48 “Keyboard Accelerators”
icon Chapter 54 “Icons”
menu Chapter 47 “Menus”
message-table entry Chapter 33 “Messages and Message Queues”
string-table entry Chapter 13 “String Manipulation”
version information Chapter 89 “File Installation Library”

For information about how to include resource data in executable files, refer to the documentation for your resource compiler.