Re: status icon API

[Mark McLoughlin <mark skynet ie>]

Hi Bill,

On Thu, 2003-04-10 at 20:12, Bill Haneman wrote:
> > 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'.

	Hmm, I'm pretty confused as to what you are suggesting ... Are you
suggesting:

	* That we add a named icon[1] API that does nothing for now?

	* With every new non-named API we allow a name to be passed in which
will override the other icon data as soon as we have icon themeing? e.g.

void gtk_status_icon_set_from_pixbuf (GtkStatusIcon *status_icon,
                                      const char    *icon_name,
                                      GdkPixbuf     *pixbuf);

	so that when icon themeing is added to gtk+ that the pixbuf arg would
be ignored ?

	Maybe you're suggesting something else, but I don't think either of
these are preferable to just adding the named icon API once there is
icon themeing in gtk+.

Good Luck,
Mark.

[1] - btw, when we see "named icon" we mean an icon name that you would
use to look up an icon according to the icon theme spec, right? Just to
be clear ...