Re: Icons of program

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

On Wed, 22 Apr, 1998 at 10:51:54AM -0400, raster@redhat.com set free these words:
> 
> * using icon files is piss-easy to impliment - it's simple, easy, hard
> to break (ie the KISS prinicple. Keep It Simple Stupid) so corupt
> databases aren't a possability - it also will speed up implimentation
> time/development of it.. infact i plan on writing icon
> file loading/saving routines into gnome sometime in the near future,
> which is why I am paying attention to this thread. Plans are:
> Tag/chunk base d9ie extenisble.. ooh sounds like IFF format to me..
> (WHEEE amiga formats kick back in), will allow 24bpp,16bpp,or
> 8bpp+palette formats for icon images (will see about usng zlib to
> compress/decompress) - will have multiple images for an icon staged
> with state names so you check for the "normal" state image, the
> "selected" state image, the "busy" state image etc. Other chiunks will
> be tagged for "tooltypes" (ie options for a command) and "tool" for the
> tool to run ont he data file (if its a data file, not an executable) -
> since the format is extenisble there isnt much else I have to do - the
> routines will allow reading and writing of arbitary chunks of an icon...
> Well I'll use Imlib of course for the image stuff... :) Once done
> Miguel shoudl have a nice set of routines at his disposal....
> 
Why?  Or rather -- why not a text file that points to an existing set of
images on the system?  (With imlib to do translation, this shouldn't be
overly complex :-)
+ Can use any existing images (readable by imlib).
+ Don't need special tools to edit the metainfo (text editor for metainfo,
  image manip. for images.)
+ images can be reused for different apps with little file overhead. (saves
  space)
+ an "icon file" is conceptually wrong: file holds extensible metadata about
  the file.  The picture just happens to be one piece of information that
  might be allocated.
- use more inodes (one for meta-data file, several for the images [active
  inactive, etc.])(But we've got these to spare, right?)
+ It's simpler than implementing a new icon format. (KISSes better :-)

-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."
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