Suggestion: Improved icon retrieval

[Benjamin Greiner <nadaschauher gmx de>]

Hello,
I'm currently developing, as a Bonobo exercise, a file list control. I
noticed that retrieving the related Nautilus icon for any given file is
a large undertakement, and I wasn't able to figure out how it works.

My suggestion is that libnautilus - or even a lower level of Gnome at
some time in the future - provides some routines to retrieve the icon,
either as a path, or as a complete, scaled and eyecandied pixbuf.

This would largely simplify the development of applications that deal
with files in some way and want to present icons to the user.

I know about the icon routines in gnome-vfs, but as the docs say - those
at most times don't get the icon Nautilus displays. From the usability
standpoint, I believe that making the use of the Nautilus icons possible
throughout Gnome would be a big improvement, e.g. for the mime type
applet and the like, especially for users that work icon-oriented for
some reason. I would even go so far as to say that putting Nautilus
themed icon retrieval into gnome-vfs is a good idea.

I apologize if this is the wrong mailing list for my suggestion.

Benjamin