Re: Missing mimetype icons in gnome-icon-theme

[Rodney Dawes <dobey novell com>]

On Fri, 2007-02-16 at 00:08 +0200, Naba Kumar wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I just noticed that many text file mimetype icons found in
> gnome-icon-theme version 2.14 are missing version 2.16. For example, in
> 2.14, there are:

> Please tell me if this is just work in progress with the new icons set
> or some political agreement to remove all distinction between the file
> icons.

No. Most end users are going to almost never have to deal with source
code, or lots of various other specific types. Also given that so many
people who do write applications, create new specific types, it makes it
incredibly hard, annoying, and tiresome to draw icons for specific
types. For example, with C, C++, H, JS, and other similar types, you're
basically going to end up with the same icon used over and over again
anyway, with the only difference being an emblem of the letter "C" or
whatever, on top, or you're going to end up trying to shove too much
into the icon.

However, we do want to provide sets of specific icons external to the
default theme, for various types of users. The "artist", "developer",
"musician" and similar sets, which one can drop in to ~/.icons/ and
will Just Work to allow the users that need those icons, to have them.
But, the default look of the desktop is the most important. If we spend
all our time drawing icons for developers, we won't have the time to
spend polishing the pieces that really need it. Right now, we're doing
just that.

Vinicius Depizzol has already started on a set of icons for various
developer file types. He's drawn Python and PHP MIME type icons, derived
from the Tango Icon Theme's text sheet. The Python icon is very nice, at
least, given that Python now has a nice simple, meaningful logo. The PHP
icon on the other hand looks less interesting at the smaller sizes, as
the logo for PHP is the purple pill with the PHP letters on it.

If any specific types that you believe are needed, have sensible logos,
then they will be much easier to draw icons for, and we can get a
drop-in set of icons going for developers. The "patch" MIME type icon
should be fairly easy as well, since one can use the ViewCVS metaphor
for differences, with the red/green/yellow hilight.

-- dobey