How to change launcher icon and it's label from the application

Question

How can I change the launcher icon and its label from my application runtime in Android? (if it is possible)
I mean the properties defined in AndroidManifest.xml: android:icon and android:label. I want to replace it by the image I take from the camera.

Answer 1

Edit: your original answer didn't specify you wanted to do it at runtime. Below the line is how to do it before it compiles. As for doing it programmatically at runtime:

From this answer:

You cannot change the manifest or the resource in the signed-and-sealed APK, except through a software upgrade.

But also, the accepted answer figured out a "hack" or some cheating way to do it (I presume). I haven't tested it, but there is a source for you to check out.

Or, this link apparently describes how to do this using the "widget" approach.

---

So lets say your manifest was like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="yourPackage"
    android:versionCode="1"
    android:versionName="1.0" >

    <uses-sdk
        android:minSdkVersion="8"
        android:targetSdkVersion="17" />

    <application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >

     ...

You would change the launcher icon by putting images into your drawable folders:

Project folder --> res --> all the drawables

Then you would change the android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher" to be android:icon="@drawable/whateverTheNameOfTheImageIsYouPutInTheDrawablesFolders"

---

To change the label:

Open up your strings.xml file which is located:

Project folder --> res --> values --> strings.xml

And look for the string that looks like this:

<string name="app_name">Your App Name</string>

And just change Your App Name to be whatever you want the label to be.

---

Summary:

android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher" determines your launcher icon, so just add images to the drawable folders and change ic_launcher to whatever the name of image is that you want to be the icon.

android:label="@string/app_name" determines your "label" so just look for app_name (because the label is referenced to @string/app_name) in your strings.xml file and change the contents of app_name.

Answer 2

This entire answer is from this post and it was taken from P-A and CommonsWare.

---

You cannot change the manifest or the resource in the signed-and-sealed APK, except through a software upgrade. or Try this, it`s work fine for me but not sure for all devices:

1. Modify your MainActivity section in AndroidManifest.xml, delete from it, line with MAIN category in intent-filter section.

   <activity android:name="ru.quickmessage.pa.MainActivity"
    android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation"
    android:screenOrientation="portrait"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
     android:theme="@style/CustomTheme"
     android:launchMode="singleTask">
     <intent-filter>
      <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
      <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />//DELETE THIS LINE
    </intent-filter>
   </activity>
   

2. Create <activity-alias> for your app, for each of your icons. Like this

   <activity-alias android:label="@string/app_name" 
   android:icon="@drawable/icon" 
   android:name=".MainActivity-Red"
   android:enabled="false"
   android:targetActivity=".MainActivity">
   <intent-filter>
   <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
   <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
   </intent-filter>   
   </activity-alias>
   

3. Set programmatically ENABLE attribute for necessary

   getPackageManager().setComponentEnabledSetting(
   new ComponentName("ru.quickmessage.pa", "ru.quickmessage.pa.MainActivity-Red"), 
       PackageManager.COMPONENT_ENABLED_STATE_ENABLED, PackageManager.DONT_KILL_APP);
   

Note, At least one must be enabled and above code perfect working up to 4.0 not tested into >4.0.