This article will demonstrate how the user interface elements can be adapted to your corporate identity. This includes elements like the name of the executable and application, the splash screen, file paths etc.

Important notes

• This article does not cover how to customize of the installation routine. It does also not describe how to extend the Online help. If you are interested in one of those topics, please contact us directly.
• Brandlabeling CoDeSys has got some legal restrictions. Please make sure that your contracts with the CODESYS Group allow you to adapt CODESYS to your corporate identity. If you are in doubt, or if the contracts do not explicitly permit this, please contact us directly.
• The attached sources were created using Visual Studio VS2019 and Automation Platform SDK V3.5 SP19 Patch 20. But they can be used with earlier verison of the SDK starting from V3.5 SP17 on. Feel free to use newer versions of the SDK and Visual Studio.

Part 1: Replacing CODESYS.exe

The first part of brand labeling is to make a replacement to the standard CODESYS.exe binary. The necessary source code is part of the download project for this article, so you do not need to get involved into the startup logic too much; simply replace those things you need. Following topics are covered hereby:

• Adapt the name of your executable by specifying the output assembly name.
• Adapt the static application icon (the icon that is displayed by the shell) by specifying your own icon in the project settings.
• Edit the form in SplashForm.cs in order to make your own splash screen.
• Edit the forms in PleaseWaitForm.cs and SelectProfileDialog.cs to adapt the other dialogs that might appear during startup.
• Edit the form in CrashDialog.cs for your own bugreport dialog. Furthermore, adapt the two fields BugReport.MAIL_NAME and BugReport.MAIL_ADDRESS appropriately.

Part 2: Developing an OEM customization plug-in

Many things in CODESYS can be adapted by the OEM using the OEM customization interface. This is a very generic callback interface where you can overwrite standard behavior in an Automation Platform plug-in. (For more information on this interface, please refer to the reference documentation.) Not surprisingly, brand labeling topics are also handled via OEM customization. The sySeDoC_BrandLabeling project in the sample solution contains a complete implementation, so you can simply use this and adapt it where necessary. The things handled are (take a look into OEMCustomizationProvider.cs for an entry point):

• About dialog which is displayed when the user selects the Help :: Information... menu.
• Company name
• Frame window icon
• Product name
• Product path component. Whenever a file path contains the product name (e.g. c:\Documents and Settings\j.doe\Application Data\product name\product name.opt), this setting is queried. Typically it is the same value as the product name itself, however you might want to change it if the product name is either long or contains invalid path characters.

Running the sample

1. Download the attached sources and unzip them to a new folder "BrandLabeling" inside the "Samples" directory of the SDK:
   <_your_sdk_installation_location>\Samples\BrandLabeling
2. If not already done, set the environment variable %APCOMMON% to the Common directory of your CoDeSys installation. (This is the directory where CODESYS.exe, IPMCLI.exe, and IPM.exe are installed.)
3. Start Visual Studio and open the solution BrandLabeling.sln.
4. Depending on your installation, you may need to correct some references to interface components and the location of your CODESYS installation. In addition you may have to adapt the version of the referenced LAC binaries in the "app.config" in the @sySeDoC project to match the ones found in your installation. See attached screenshot "BrandLabeling_Finetuning.png" for more information.
5. Build the sample. The plug-in will be automatically installed, and the executable will be copied parallel to the CoDeSys.exe location.
6. Use IPM.exe in order to add the plug-in Sample: Brand Labeling to one of your version profiles.
7. Start your customized executable and ignore the message about the missing plug-in key.

Best practices

When using the sample code in any serious development, please make sure that you exchange all type GUIDs and the plug-in GUID by GUIDs generated on your machine.