Multiple DeskTops, HiColor theme, standardized icon names, & menu icons

[Rodney Dawes]

On Fri, 2006-06-23 at 23:44 -0700, James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> and to standardize this they would go in:
> 
> 	$XDG_DATA_DIR/apps/<app_name>/icons/<theme>/<size>/<type>

> If this is not part of the standard, SMcC's posting illustrates that 
> GNOME does not have a standard way to deal with this and pointed out 
> that KDE does.  I suggest that the KDE method (which works --except for 
> bugs) be added to the standard if RD can live with it.

GNOME is not the only thing that doesn't have automagical lookup of
app-specific icons in a private directory that mimics the layout of icon
themes. GNOME simply implements the Icon Theme Specification, which
clearly does not state any way to do this. KDE implements things which
are above and beyond the specification, as well as things which make the
transition to standardized names, so that we can actually share themes
across the desktops, quite difficult. Any other piece of software which
implements the specification, and doesn't add additional hackery to make
it do special things, as KDE does, is going to have the same problems.
So, with that, can we please try to avoid simply limiting the details to
those that GNOME and KDE conflict on? This is supposed to be about the
independence of desktop implementations, not simply the peaceful
co-existence of the two major ones.

That said, $datadir/apps is not part of the FHS, and seems redundant to
me, as well as adding implied conflict with $datadir/applications, which
is part of an XDG spec already, as "apps" is mearly the short version of
"applications." In fact, according to the FHS, it looks like the app's
static arch-indep files should be in $datadir/<app_name>, unless there
is a more specific sub-directory where data should be placed, such as in
$datadir/games/<app_name>. The redundancy of the apps directory, and
implied conflict with applications directory, along with the fact that
the FHS doesn't specify app-specific data being in apps/<app_name> are
my main concerns with your proposal. But, I have no issue with a similar
solution which doesn't conflict with other specifications, being
included in the Icon Theme Specification, along with very clear text
about how applications should install these icons.

-- dobey


PS: I already have a patch to GTK+ which basically adds this feature to
the icon theme implementation there. I just need to also patch a few
apps to install icons accordingly to test with, to make sure it all
works right.