You’ve probably noticed that some activities, when displayed in the activity list, show a screen clip of the activity being run as the activity’s icon instead of showing the default green chalkboard icon. As an activity designer, you’ll want your activity to be easily found and often times, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. People will remember the look of your activity before they remember the name. So, it’s a good idea to set the icon of your activity to be representative of what that activity looks like when it runs.
Fortunately, it’s incredibly easy to do. Here are the steps:
Find your activity in the activity list and tap it’s icon to start the activity designer. Here, I’ll select the activity named “My New Activity”. Notice that it currently has a green chalkboard icon.
Once I tap on the activity, the typical flow of the instructions being presented occurs. I’ll close out of that by touching OK.
Next, I’ll go ahead and touch the “Play” button to start the activity.
Once the activity has settled into something that I like (maybe waiting for something to move or for me to interact with the activity), I then touch the camera icon in the top left of the navigation bar.
Notice the new window that has displayed on top of the activity. This window shows the screen as it was captured by the app. On that little window, there is a button labeled “Icon”. When you press it, the picture in the little window will become the icon of your activity. The system, upon completing this, presents a white box message indicating the icon has been successfully set.
Now, I’ll make my way back to the activity list…refresh the list, … and there you have it… your icon is now in place for your activity making it far easier for everyone to find.
What you’ve learned:
- You recognize the value an icon brings to help people locate your activity
- Icons display in the list once they have been set for the activity
- As the activity designer, you can create an icon for your activity
- When you create an icon, you run the activity and that at the moment you wish, you screen clip the running activity, and touch the icon button to save the icon
- You may have to refresh the activity list to see your new icon the first time.