[Tango-artists] How do the GTK stock icons work?

[Rodney Dawes]

On Wed, 2006-08-09 at 14:14 +0200, Tobias Wolf wrote:
> Salve,
> 
> I wanted to replace the stock action "edit" with my own (humble)
> version, because it stands out in many places, e.g., on the new Nautilus
> location entry toggle. However I cannot figure out how to do it. Simply
> replacing stock_edit.png in g-i-t shows no effect.

The names for gtk+ stock icons are not stock_*. They are gtk-* and you
can see exactly what they are for each image in the gtkstock.h header
file from the development package for gtk+.

> I’ll attach the icons, but they’re merely remixed from existing
> Tango/git2 icons.

You can't just mix pieces from tango-icon-theme and gnome-icon-theme
into a new icon, due to the license differences. The two licenses are
not compatible, so any derivative icons must be entirely made up of
elements under only one of the licenses.

Also, the GTK_STOCK_EDIT icon is an icon that is often inappropriately
used, and I believe the metaphor is perhaps not too great. I think a
better goal would be to look at what metaphor/icon would be best in the
situations where GTK_STOCK_EDIT is currently being used, rather than
simply making the current icon look a bit prettier. In the latter case,
it will be "good enough" and other issues will be forgotten, while
keeping it as it is now, will make the icon stick out, and make people
want to fix it, like you want to do. However, I don't think simply
replacing the icon is the proper fix here.

-- dobey