Re: status icon API

[Bill Haneman <bill haneman sun com>]

> I'd guess that the right API has:
> 
>  - A way of setting the icon from a pixbuf (and in the future,
>    once we have named themed icon support from an named
>    theme icon)

Yes, I was concerned about this.  In fact I would strongly prefer that
any 'icon' APIs that we use (certainly new ones!) be designed so that
icons have names (preferably unique) that a theming mechanism can hook
into after the fact, even if the original application or tool wasn't
thinking "themeable".  IOW there should always be a way to add new
themed icons to iconsets, even for application-specific icons, so that
the current set's icon is substituted for the "default" one provided.  A
foo_create_from_file (foo.png) API without associated naming or key
strings is bad for accessibility:

1) it doesn't provide a hook for icon-sets to plug a replacement into;
2) it doesn't provide a string for the icon that can be used as a 'name'
   for the icon, other than the filename.

If we build this stuff into the API then application writers won't have
to do 'extra' stuff or avoid the use of certain APIs in order to ensure
theme compliance; the business of providing themed icons in icon-sets
then becomes more like localization/translation, in that icon-set
maintainers can keep on the lookout for new named icons to 'theme'.

- Bill