Mapping Images to Custom Object Types
This is an administrator-level activity.
By default, custom objects in the FileNet® Workplace UI are identified by the same image. You can, however, differentiate custom objects by type, and associate different images to the different types. For example, the following screen shot shows two different images for two types of custom objects.

For Workplace to display unique images for custom object types, you must map image files to custom object hidden properties, a procedure that involves both the Content Engine and Workplace.
When you install Content Engine, the Custom Object class in existing object stores is automatically updated with a hidden property called "Custom Object Type". The symbolic name is CustomObjectType.
To map images to custom object types:
- From the Content Engine's Enterprise Manager, verify that the CustomObjectType property was imported when you installed the Content Engine.
In the left pane, navigate to Object Stores > anyObjecStore > Other Classes > Custom Object.
At the bottom of the right pane, the property "Custom Object Type" should appear.

- For each custom object type that you want to define in an object store, set the CustomObjectType property in the applicable custom object subclass. For example, if you want to create custom objects for bitmaps and for PDFs, you would do the following steps for two subclasses, one for bitmaps and one for PDFs.
- Under Object Stores
> desiredObjecStore > Other Classes > Custom Object, select the custom subclass that you want to define as a type.

- From the Action Menu, select Properties to display the Properties dialog box for the selected class.
- Select the Property Definitions tab, then select the Inherited Properties check box.
- Select the Custom Object Type property, and choose Edit. The Custom Object Type Properties dialog box appears.
- Select the More tab.
- Set the Default Value option to a string that identifies the type of custom object, for example, "application/x-filenet-bitmap-customobject". Note this value because you will have to map it to an image in the Workplace configuration file on the Application Engine.

- Close the Custom Object Type Properties dialog box, then close the Properties dialog box.
- After completing the above steps for each custom object type that you want to define in an object store, restart the Apache httpd Web server on the Content Engine to allow the changes to be picked up by the Application Engine.
- In Workplace, for each custom object type, create a 16x16 bit GIF file, and name it image16.gif,
where image is the unique name of the image GIF file.
NOTES
- A non-GIF file that you rename with a ".gif" extension will not be detected by Workplace. You must use an image editor to save the file with the ".gif" extension.
- The extension of the image file must be lowercase (".gif"). An image file with an all CAPS extension (".GIF") will not be detected by Workplace.
- Do not include extended characters (characters which are non-Latin 1 and non-Unicode) in the names of the image files.
- In the <AE_install_path>/Workplace/images/customobject directory, place the custom image files.
- In <AE_install_path>/FileNet/Config/AE, back up customobjecticons.properties before modifying it.
- In <AE_install_path>/FileNet/Config/AE, open customobjecticons.properties.
- For each custom object type, map it to the path of the image file, using this format:
customObjectType=images/customobject/image
where:
customObjectType is the value of the CustomObjectType property
image is the unique name of the GIF file.
For example, a file called "CustomBmap16.gif" would be referenced as follows in customobjecticons.properties:
application/x-filenet-bitmap-customobject=images/customobject/CustomBmap
- If any values of the CustomObjectType property include extended characters (characters which are non-Latin 1 and non-Unicode), you must convert customobjecticons.properties to Unicode-encoded characters with the native2ascii utility, included with the Java™ Development Kit (JDK).
- Redeploy Workplace.
Workplace will use the default custom image defined in customobjecticons.properties in the following situations:
- If the CustomObjectType property does not exist in the custom object subclass
- If the mapping to the custom image is missing in customobjecticons.properties
- If you included extended characters in the name of the image file.
- If customobjecticons.properties contains extended characters, and the file has not been converted to Unicode-encoded characters with the native2ascii utility.
If the customobjecticons.properties file is missing, Workplace will use the following custom image: Workplace/images/type/CustomObject16.gif.