Bug 163311

[James Richard Tyrer]

If you can remember, a while ago, I was ranting about the need for
applications to also have HiColor icons, or ways to fix the issue in the
Icon Loader code.

Naturally I was told that I was crazy, although it should have been
clear to anyone what would happen if we changed the default icon theme.

Well, now we have changed the icon theme, for KDE3 applications, since
the default icon theme is Oxygen and most KDE3 applications are setup as
though the only icon theme that exists.

So, the result now is that if you run KDE3 applications on KDE4 that you
are missing a lot of icons.

I do not claim any special knowledge, or great intelligence.  I just
took the time to think various cases through as I was taught to do in
engineering school.

There is probably a workaround for this by changing the:

        Inherits=

in the "index.theme" of Oxygen or HiColor, but a better solution would
be to fix the code with a general solution to this problem.

There are other partial solutions such as installing the circa KDE3
Oxygen icons.  Are there such icons somewhere to download?  Perhaps this
would help:

http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/Oxygen+Icon+Theme+for+KDE3?content=79046

Although I seemed to have some installed before I installed this.

And, now, we are doing the same thing.  KDE4 applications are being
setup as though the only icon theme that exists is Oxygen and we are not
supporting a HiColor theme (note that we can call our generic fallback
something else as long as the Icon Loader knows what to use [e.g.
KDEClassic].  So, we are setting ourselves up for the same problem.

--
JRT

On Friday 13 June 2008, James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> So, the result now is that if you run KDE3 applications on KDE4 that you
> are missing a lot of icons.

.. in the application launcher menu, not the applications themselves. the
solution is to get these kde3 applications in line with the standard which
says that non-generic application logo icons should go into the hi-color
space.

with kde4 apps, we are installing the app icons into hi-color along with our
mimetype icons.

so kde4 apps are doing the Right Thing(tm) and this is supported by the build
system.

--
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Trolltech

[James Richard Tyrer]

Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Friday 13 June 2008, James Richard Tyrer wrote:
>> So, the result now is that if you run KDE3 applications on KDE4 that you
>> are missing a lot of icons.

If our leader tells us that black is white and most of us believe him,
then as far as we are concerned, black is white but the ontology remains
the same.

> .. in the application launcher menu, not the applications themselves. the
> solution is to get these kde3 applications in line with the standard which
> says that non-generic application logo icons should go into the hi-color
> space.

That is not what the current release 0.11 says.  It is AJS that is
saying that.  But, if KDE accepts the word of our leader than that is
what is true.  Actually, you have projected what you think (i.e. no
HiColor theme icons allowed) onto what the icon naming standard actually
says and corrupted the meaning to match what it says.  Perhaps you do
not actually understand what it says.

> with kde4 apps, we are installing the app icons into hi-color along with our
> mimetype icons.

This is a kludge.  It works for some cases, but will it work for all
cases.  I don't think so.  What happens if you are using both GNOME and
KDE apps and both GNOME and KDE are set to the same icon theme -- that
is, after all, the final outcome of having standard icon names isn't it?

> so kde4 apps are doing the Right Thing(tm) and this is supported by the build
> system.
>
KDE4 apps are doing the wrong thin.  What is needed is to add to/change
the icon naming spec so that KDE can install a single icon them and not
need to install non-HiColor icons in HiColor.

Note that what the icon naming spec says is that if an app doesn't have
neutral (much better term than unthemed) icons (e.g. HiColor icons) that
it should install whatever icons it has in the HiColor them.  What that
means is clear.  If an app has Oxygen icons and no HiColor style icons
that it should install ALL of its icons in HiColor.

This makes a certain amount of sense since it will work in all cases,
but it is not the best solution.  The best solution probably still
hasn't been found yet, but we do need to search for it.  Otherwise, we
need to install all of the default theme icons as HiColor because those
are the only icons we have (that is what the standard says).  What the
best solution would be is a method that has the same effect but allows
us to install all of the Oxygen icons as Oxygen even if there are no
HiColor icons.

--
JRT