Re: Icons of program

[Toshio Kuratomi <badger prtr-13 ucsc edu>]

On Sun, 19 Apr, 1998 at 10:29:15AM -0400, raster@redhat.com set free these words:
> On 19 Apr, Tony 'Merc' Mobily shouted:
> ->  Hi,
> ->  
> ->  I know I'll be killed by about 200 messages agains me, but...
> ->  I don't really like the idea of having my hard disk full of .info file for
> ->  every icon I define on my computer.
> ->  
> ->  Moreover, I wanted to be free to define icons even if I *don't* have rights
> ->  of writing on that directory (I would be the only one to see that
> ->  folder/file like that, for example).
> ->  
> ->  I think it's possible to implement in several different ways, to avoid 100
> ->  little .info files spread around...
> 
> easy. Do what ee does.
> 
> if you use the thumbnail viewer, check in ~/.ee/icons/
> u'll proly find form that dir on it will build a miror of your filing
> system - so if you have a thumbnail for a picture:
> /usr/local/pix/sky.png
> 
> a thumbnail exists in:
> ~/.ee/icons/usr/local/pix/sky.png
> 
> ee will build this tree as it goes around creating thumbnails... all
> transparently.. :) it still makessense to have an icon format..a nd
> place that file there. Thats the placement of the ".info" file.. that
> can be done many ways. I still think we need a nice compact,
> open-designed icon format to place somewhere than can hold user
> preferences like for exectubles the parameters to run the program with,
> or for data files the program to run to "open" that data file etc.
> 
Just use a text file.

ie: define an "info file" that is a text file (maybe arbitrary name-value
pairs with some standard names and some required names).  Some of the names
will be "invoke as", "icon", and "activated icon" and will contain Commandline
invocation and paths to icons information.

This could be done with a seperate info file for each file, or in several
files that have multiple definitions, or in a database that syncs with the
text files.  (Is this why BeOS has a database twined in with their filesystem
somehow?)

There should be the ability to define a system wide file and user specific
files and room for assigning icon based on "file types".

Command-line cp/mv/etc won't be able to track the "info files", but that
shouldn't be too bad.  System files (ie: /bin/ln) shouldn't move all that much.
And a user who uses the graphical programs that use the info files will also
move the files using them.

-Toshio
-- 
badger  \"The Difference between today and yesterday is not so much what has
@prtr-13 \ changed between then and now as what I hope to change by tomorrow."
.ucsc.edu  \~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~

PGP signature