Desktop entry Icons: filename extensions?

Ville Skyttä ville.skytta at iki.fi
Tue Aug 17 17:46:58 EEST 2004


On Tue, 2004-08-17 at 10:15, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-08-17 at 00:45, Ville Skyttä wrote:
[...]
> > I assume that the filename extension should be included in the value of
> > the .desktop file's Icon key.  Correct?  If so (or if not), perhaps this
> > could be clarified in some of the specs?
> 
> If you're using icon themed icons you should not give the extension. Its
> likely that another theme could use another file format for your icon
> (say .svg instead of .png). 

Let's say I have written an app and wish to include a freedesktop.org
compatible .desktop file for launching it in the distribution tarball +
one PNG icon for it.  I have of course no idea whether the people
installing this app have themed icons or not.  What would you recommend,
should I include Icon in the .desktop entry with or without ".png"?

What about when packaging software for eg. Fedora Core 2 (or 3), should
one include the extension or not?  Some stats: on my FC2 box, there are
95 .desktop entry files in /usr/share/applications which have the Icon
key.  Of those, only 8 do not have an extension in the Icon value.  Yet
I have the impression that icon theming works (not really verified right
now; oh, and I use KDE).




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