Getting the icons used by GtkFileChooser

[Michael Natterer <mitch gimp org>]

Hi,

I realize my mail is a bit late in the API freeze process but then the
GtkFileChooser was hacked so badly the last few days (and I also
hacked badly to follow the changes) that I realized this issue not
earlier than today.

With the new automatic backend choosing of GtkFileChooser most people
will sooner or later use the gnome-vfs backend without even knowing
it, let alone explicitely linking against gnome-vfs.

The file chooser will then use nice icons for all kinds of
mime-types. What I hacked up for GIMP looks like this:

http://mitch.gimp.org/filechooser/chooser-shot-5.png

You'll notice the preview of the selected file is exactly the same as
in the file tree view. To render the icon, I can safely use the
semi-private GtkFileSystem API (if I #ifdef enough to be safe against
API changes).

However I have no way of getting the GtkFileSystem that is used by the
GtkFileChooser and hiding that detail from evil hackers like me is
perfectly OK.

IMHO the app should be able to use exactly the same icons as the file
system backend does (for GUI consistency), so I see 3 ways of doing
this:

(1) use _gtk_file_chooser_get_file_system().
(2) link against libgnomeui and use gnome_icon_lookup().
(3) add API like gtk_file_chooser_render_icon_from_filename() and _from_uri().


(1) is what I do in GIMP now and is absolutely impossible because it
    only works because libtool is broken.
(2) is not an option because the app should not be forced to link
    against gnome just to use the same icons GtkFileChooser uses.

The only remaining option seems (3), maybe in a slightly more
sane way that involves GtkFileInfo.

This is IMHO an important issue since the writer of a GTK+-only
program (like GIMP is) should be able to hack a consistent GUI even
though GTK+ implicitely dynamically dlopen()-links against gnome-vfs.

Please consider this small API addition even though the
deadline is over...

thanks,
--mitch