Hmm, this is getting a bit more urgent now, we've a deadline looming
and we're still debating in-house whether it makes more sense for the
application or the theme to install distro-branded, app-specific icons.
Some are saying that it's bad practice for a theme package to install
files into the namespace of an application package, while others are
pointing out that apps can't be expected to maintain patches for every
possible theme. Distros can certainly patch those apps downstream, but
that will become more of a chore as more apps start installing app-
specific icons. And independent theme artists don't have that luxury
at all.
So what should I be definitively telling our maintainers, and why?
Cheeri,
Calum.
On 19 Aug 2008, at 12:20, Calum Benson wrote:
I'm working on a couple of apps here which, as per <http://live.gnome.org/ThemableAppSpecificIcons
>, install their default app-specific hicolor icons into /usr/share/
<appname>/icons/hicolor. So far so good.
That page also says "You can also provide icons for other themes in
here, by installing them into a subdirectory for that theme". My
question is how best to do that, as so far I haven't seen anyone
else doing it. Specifically, we want to add icons for Sun's branded
icon theme, Nimbus.
It seems like the correct approach would be to have the Nimbus theme
itself install the icons into /usr/share/<appname>/icons/nimbus.
However, should the user uninstall the app, that means they're still
left with a /usr/share/<appname> directory lying around, which
doesn't seem ideal.
The other obvious option would be for the theme to install the icons
into /usr/share/icons/<themename>, just as if they were non-app-
specific icons. This gives the cleanest separation between theme
and application, but seems to go against the spirit of what's
described on the wiki.
The wording on the wiki actually initially gave me the impression
that the application itself should install the icons for any
additional themes, too-- but that's surely not what's really being
suggested? (Although it would actually be a good way to handle app-
specific a11y-themed icons, but probably not much else.)
So, how should we really be doing this?
Cheeri,
Calum.
--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] GNOME Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum +353 1 819 9771
Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems
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