Icon theme specification: Standardizing icon names

[Ryan Gammon]

Frans Englich wrote:

>Hello everyone,
>
>Attached is a patch which standardizes 1048 icon names, compiled from the 
>~2050 icons which KDE and GNOME in all houses. While that sounds like a lot, 
>and bizarre for that matter too, the important question is where this is 
>heading, what we want to achieve, and why.
>  
>

Cool. I like icons like:

document-new
edit-copy

... etc.

Some of them are a little less core:

calendar-view-work-week
pciexpress
table-size-fit-width

Maybe we could separate these into categories? Maybe base, office, 
media, etc? Apps could require a certain level of icon theme-ed-ness in 
order to be fully themed.

Will document (mime type) icons ever appear in this spec? Would 
RealAudio/RealVideo mime type icons eventually show up in a fdo spec? 
How does RealAudio/RealVideo and RealPlayer work with this proposal?

>* There's a big difference between how GNOME and KDE handles folder 
>attributes. GNOME uses "emblems" as overlays, partly in its spatial browsing 
>concept. KDE has the "folder reflects content" feature and indicators for 
>read only folders, for example. KDE doesn't use overlays, but use ordinary 
>folder icons modified by hand. Should we agree on a method for this? (I would 
>say KDE should switch to overlays and the emblem group to be extended) Or 
>should we have emblems as well as folders like KDE do?
>It should also be asked if scaled mimetype icons(as overlays) should be used 
>instead of emblems, especially for KDE's "folder reflects content". Otherwise 
>it will be an endless adding of emblems.
>  
>

If emblems are standardized, will there be a fdo spec like the gnome hig 
for how to draw emblems? (perspective, palette, lighting, etc)?

http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/icons.html#icons-style

>* In the patch there is standardized application icons for common ones, which 
>allows simple programs to easily be themed, without having to bother with 
>individual applications(but this can also be solved with pseudo icons). Is 
>this a good idea or would it only be ignored?
>  
>

I'm sure we'd have a strong preference for RealPlayer to show up with a 
Real icon, and not a generic media player icon -- it would be ignored by us.

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