Re: icon naming spec and gnome-vfs

[Pat Suwalski <pat suwalski net>]

Jakub Steiner wrote:
> An image thumbnail will give you much more information than a text label
> on a tiny icon and that is likely to be the default case on the GNOME
> desktop.

Unless, like me, you're always converting images that are large and you 
don't want to thumbnail, but you want to quickly distinguish between the 
TIFF and the JPEG. This leads in to the further discussion.

> I always intended to draw the specific media icons, but I really hope to
> see infrastructure for getting the generic fallback in place first so
> that theming is actually a solution and not an excuse. In the past I've
> been adding specific icons to gnome icon theme, while not being able to
> make them properly in all the required sizes, only to see distributions
> fail to theme the set properly. The concept of themes makes us look
> unpolished without a decent concept of generic fallback. So let's go
> from generic to specific -- properly providing all sizes, ending up in a
> consistently looking desktop sooner. 

It sounds like the old argument that we need a generic overlay 
mechanism, like the emblems. Nautilus (or a level higher) needs to be 
able to overlay information over a generic-ish icon.

Then we can have device icons with added information.

Then we can have thumbnails with something distinguishing between the 
types. I know some people think this is useless, I couldn't disagree more.

Then we have a configuration switch to turn that all off if the person 
doesn't want it or the overhead that would go with it.

Then everyone is happy.

--Pat