Re: icons/hicolor vs icons/gnome

[Jakub Steiner <jimmac ximian com>]

On Mon, 2004-01-12 at 11:19, Luca Ferretti wrote:
> It seems that currently icons in gnome-icon-theme are installed in both
> $(prefix)/share/icons/gnome and $(prefix)/share/icons/hicolor.

Nope. There's a problem looking for a solution. Here's a little summary
of the situation right now.

The reasons to have an icon theme are:

      * to have artwork at a central module for easy maintanance;
        reducing duplication or artwork
      * having artwork structured (size/category)
      * further themeability

I see the last point a bit of a problem. A problem that lies in icon
inheritance. Histrorically an icon theme consisted primarily of file
manager icons. The largest portion being the mime type icons. 

It was desired to be able _not_ to inherit a theme. For a theme that was
visually different to the default theme, the author may have preferred
to use a generic icon than the appropriate mimetype icon from default
theme (imagine a combination of, say, Gorilla/gnome. It hits you in the
face looking very unprofessional).

However for launcher icons or stock icons used in applications, you
don't want some generic icon if the current theme doesn't provide one.
You really want to inherit some defaults.

That's why there was a proposal to split the default into two. Have
application and stock icons go to 'hicolor'. This theme is a fallback
theme and is ALWAYS inherited. The mimetype icons would go to 'gnome'
which would be the default gnome theme, but theme authors could choose
not to inherit it.

Rodney also came up with a standard filenaming scheme. If I understand
this right, this is necersary for interoperability between various
desktops. It makes little sense to have different filenaming schemes if
we finally have themes that could work across desktops.

cheers

-- 
Jakub Steiner <jimmac ximian com>