Icon theme spec on the website

[Rodney Dawes]

The details are in the spec. The problem with file type icons is people
assign arbitrary things as the MIME type. Like application/foo for
audio files, or text types. It seems like most new things just end up
under application/ when they would be better suited to other groups,
or perhaps should have new sane groups created. There are very few types
for which "application" actually makes sense as a grouping. Having these
sorts of types defined, makes it very hard to easily fall back to a sane
generic icon. This is why the new generic icon stuff was added to the
Shared MIME spec, and is in shared-mime-info now.

The icon-naming-utils package is and always was meant as a crutch, to
help us move forward, without sacrificing compatibility in the meantime.
It is not a hack, but a temporary bandage to help with the insane number
of icons we have in the desktop.

So, I'm not quite sure what you mean by having "battled with ridiculous
icon names" or anything. I've never seen any e-mail from you on this
list, the tango list, or personally, asking for clarification where you
might be confused with some wording in the spec, or to propose new
icons, or anything. And it is rather insulting for your first e-mail to
be one of such bold insistence that the spec needs a re-think and
serious additions and rules, and still yet you have any to propose.

If you have something to propose, then do so. Don't lurk in the
background and wait for an opportunity to complain. Propose it, and
there can be discussion and acceptance or denial of your proposal as
is fit. Making rash demands without any supporting information, is not
making a proposal.

-- Rodney



On Thu, 2008-09-25 at 23:06 +0800, Toma wrote:
> Agreed. Too long have I battled with ridiculous icon names. Over in E
> town, we're trying to get the icon themes to provide icons for the
> file manager, but the majority of icon themes use hacks and links to
> get them to work with a particular version of whatever. Now, you can
> blame this on the icon packager, but part of the blame is in the spec,
> for not outlining all the details.
> 
> That said, the whole spec needs a re-think and needs some serious
> additions and rules.
> Toma