Re: Sudden Tango changes in trunk

[Yevgen Muntyan <muntyan tamu edu>]

Tristan Van Berkom wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-03-28 at 16:38 +0200, Kristian Rietveld wrote:
>   
> > On Wed, Mar 28, 2007 at 12:49:44PM +0200, Jakub Steiner wrote:
> >     
> [...]
>   
> > The concern which I want to raise, and which I already did in my
> > previous mail, is the following: "Does updating icons account as a
> > break of backward compatibility?".  Running a GTK+ application which
> > has some custom drawn icons with the new stock icons, might make those
> > custom icons look out of place.  A GTK+ application which is putting a custom
> > drawn "overlay" on a new stock icon might look out of place.  And, for
> > example Gossip, is using the gtk-justify-left icon as an icon for the
> > "View Previous Conversations" menu item -- this might also break with a
> > new stock icon which is using a different metaphor to communicate the
> > intention of the item to the user.  Or is using a stock item for a
> > different action as intended seen as a misuse of the API?  I am sure
> > Gossip is not the only application doing this.
> >     
>
> FWIW, I think its better for everyone if that would be considered a
> misuse of the api - I dont think gtk+ makes any gauruntees about
> what a "next" or "apply" icon will look like, changing these icons
> on a regular basis can even help teach applications to be more
> diligent in thier use of the api.
>   
I think it is clear that if you use "gtk-foo" icon for "bar" then
you're misusing it. But let's not forget about the reasons for
doing it: there may simply be no other alternative other than no
icon at all. gtk icons set is not exactly rich to cover even simplish
non-stock metaphors, and if a programmer wants to have an
icon for "foobarize" he will use "gtk-jump-to". Yes, bad and all that.
Icon theme maintainers say that's plain wrong and bad for
user and everything, but what can we do?

Best regards,
Yevgen