Icon / mime association..

[Kustaa Nyholm]

Hi List,

new here, so excuse me if this is wrong place to ask this question.

I've tried to do my home work, spent some ten hours in the web but I still do 
not know the answer.

How do I do file/mime/application associations in the freedesktop.org style?

I understand that I create a myapp.xml file in /usr/bin/mime/packages and then 
run update-mime-database.

But as far as I understand this only associates, in practical terms, my mime 
type, a description of the type and file extension together, no icon.

I then  create a myapp.desktop file and run update-desktop-database which 
associates my mime type, executable and icon and a description of the application.

Now the part I don't understand:

The icon in the .desktop file, is that an icon for the application or the 
document (mime typed) file? Or both?

How can I get a separate icon for the application and document? What if my 
application supports several document (mime) types?

I figured this could be be done with a .desktop file with the Type=Mimetype and
Patterns=*.ext but these are deprecated?

I've read the icon naming spec and icon theme spec but I just don't get it.

Please advice or give pointers.

cheers Kusti