packaging: new spec filed idea

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Jan 18, 2008 7:20 AM, Bill Nottingham <notting at redhat.com> wrote:
> I think updating the hicolor-icon-theme package every time we add a new app to
> Fedora, or any time such an app changes its icon, is somewhere beyond impractical.

I'm not sure I understand the value of icons when searching for
applications that you haven't already installed.  But perhaps there is
value in using icons for updates. My reasoning is, most people should
have icon awareness for applications they use a lot.

So is there a compromise here.   Would it be worth embedding an icon
name into repodata for a package, and if they icon exists on the
system then the gui tools will use the icon in reference to a package
update?  But I don't know how you would drive that information into
the repodata  Is that something packagedb would have to do?  For
applications not already on the system, an icon representing the comps
group or rpm group for which the package belongs is perhaps pulled
from the hi-color set on system and displayed instead?

But the underlying question that I cannot answer is if there is a real
benefit to exposing icons at all.  I'm not sure there is. And even if
there is, I'm not sure its worth the complexity of implementing it.

-jef