Re: Icon update

[Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com>]

Leon <sdl.web@gmail.com> writes:

> Handling icons is more complicated in emacs than in anything
> else. Maybe some gtk programmers can point out a solution or maybe we
> can create a set of universal icons like nvu and openoffice. We can
> also publish a guideline of creating icons for emacs so that package
> writers can follow. And in the end emacs will have a consistent look!

I think Emacs doesn't have any special icon needs so that might not be
necessary. Using the icons from the current theme is the best choice.
Remember that Emacs also has to provide icons where GTK does not
exist. Or GNOME. But it's fair to say that most Emacs users have it as
an environment which is why the fallback, built-in icons, come from
those icon sets.

But you did remind me of something we should think about.

I noticed that Jan's patch calls for the addition of properties to
calls of tool-bar-add-item-from-menu such as

  (tool-bar-local-item-from-menu 'Info-search "search" map Info-mode-map
 				 :stock "gtk-find")

This means that all calls to tool-bar-* in all modes to need to be
updated. It would be good to avoid this. Plus, this approach doesn't
scale to other systems.

I think it would be preferable to keep the tool-bar-* calls the way
they are and provide a table of Emacs icon names to the icon name for
the system being used. That way, Emacs will honor the user's theme
whether it is being run under GNOME, KDE, or Windows, without
requiring code changes from all Emacs package developers.

-- 
Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com>  http://www.newt.com/wohler/  GnuPG ID:610BD9AD
Maintainer of comp.mail.mh FAQ and MH-E. Vote Libertarian!
If you're passed on the right, you're in the wrong lane.