mime-type icons, a proposal

[Ryan Gammon]

Jakub Steiner wrote:

>On Fri, 2004-10-01 at 21:41 -0700, Rob Lanphier wrote:
>  
>
>>up (Mac OS X), Ryan *demonstrated* that they are more app-centric than
>>you are giving them credit for, and the platform is still
>>aesthetically just fine.
>>    
>>
>
>One thing that speaks against app-centric icons for mime types is the
>number of combinations when you have to deal with the concept of icon
>themes. 
>
>There is no concept of icon themes on OSX as far as I know. There is a
>single set, with defined guidelines. Having a single look for the "Linux
>desktop" would surely be nice, but realistically I hardly see an
>agreement on a global KDE/Gnome icon theme possible. So if icon themes
>cannot go and we want to have app-defined mime-types, it means having
>multiple version of a mime type icon *per theme*. Since this will hardly
>be manageable, users will end up having mixed style icons on desktops
>and it will look like XP having all the win95 cruft all around.
>  
>

IMO, that's where the value of a distribution comes in -- putting in the 
polish that creates the best looking desktop environment, including 
theming work in things like gnome, bluecurve, industrial, etc.

fd.o could potentially create a neutral icon look & feel spec if it so 
desired, which apps could use in creating their icons. If a distro 
wanted to go beyond this and create a unique look & feel like osx does 
with aqua, they could figure out where their icon coverage / effort bar 
is, and reproduce icons for their particular vision of a theme, 
co-ordinating with the copyright owners of the originals of all these icons.

People who want consistancy could go with the fdo-spec'd default. People 
who are willing to give up some consistancy for style could go for an 
icon theme.

That's more or less the boat we're in right now, except when it comes to 
hicolor, we don't really define what "neutral" means, and so we end up 
with a duel between gnome's HIG and the kde icon style guidelines.

-- 
Ryan Gammon
rgammon at real.com
Developer for Helix Player
https://player.helixcommunity.org