mime-type icons, a proposal

[Jakub Steiner]

On Oct 5, 2004, at 12:40 AM, Ryan Gammon wrote:
> 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.

I don't see this argument very appealing. Let's make a spec that makes 
having consistent look easy, not hard. Perhaps there is a way order the 
lookup of a  mime type icon that does make app-defined mimetypes 
possible (although I'm not toally convince we really NEED this 
functionality still). For example:

1) check if there is a mimetype icon for the current default handler in 
the current theme
2) generic mimetype icon in the current theme
3) parent type (video/*, text/*) in the current theme
4) default handler mimetype in the inherited theme
5) generic mimetype icon in the inherited theme
6) parent type in the inherited theme
7) default handler icon in hicolor
8) generic mimetype in hicolor
9) parent type in hicolor

This could give a consistent look even for fairly minimalist themes 
with only a handful of parent type icons.

A single vanilla icon in a folder of distinctly different looking theme 
will just hit you in the face. And it's fairly impossible for theme 
authors to remain in sync when there is going to be not only new 
mimetypes showing up, but also new applications handling them. Even for 
a polished distribution - a user installs a new application and 
consistent look is history.

cheers

Jakub Steiner
--
even a stopped clock gives a right time twice a day