Bundle images

[fenhl]

Is there a way to bundle images into the binary at compile time, rather than loading them from the file system at runtime (which means the app can't be a standalone .exe)?

[fenhl]

I managed to find a workaround using iced::image::Handle::from_memory and std::include_bytes, but that involves cloning the images.

[twitchyliquid64]

Seems related to #549 & #570. I agree we need a better way to load images into memory, and pass that through to the backend efficiently.

As for the specific problem of bundling images, I think include_bytes or writing into an ELF section in the binary is the way to go - I can't think of anything iced-specific here.

[twitchyliquid64]

Btw, you can 'bundle' images into the binary using the lazy_static macro/crate combined with the include_bytes builtin macro. The 'bundling' looks like this:

    pub static ref SOIC8: image::Handle =
        image::Handle::from_memory(include_bytes!("../../res/package/SOIC-8.png").to_vec());

From there, you can clone it + instantiate a new image:

Image::new(SOIC8.clone())

Note that this approach does an allocation + bytes copy as part of the render path, which isn't ideal. In practice this is fast enough for icon-sized images in release mode.