PackageKit application icons

[Richard Hughes]

On 1/28/09, Rick L. Vinyard, Jr. <rvinyard at cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
> Jesse Keating wrote:
>> On Wed, 2009-01-28 at 14:24 -0700, Rick L. Vinyard, Jr. wrote:
>>> Bill Nottingham wrote:
>>> > Rick L. Vinyard, Jr. (rvinyard at cs.nmsu.edu) said:
>>> >> Ahhh... I see that now, and they're already there.
>>> >>
>>> >> It's a shame that's the only mechanism for adding icons. I'd like to
>>> see
>>> >> something other than cardboard boxes when looking for devel packages.
>>> >
>>> > The problem is you'd either need to:
>>> >
>>> > - include icons in the metadata (which gets very large, very fast)
>>> > - create a package that consists of all the icons that may be in
>>> >   the distro (which gets very messy to maintain, very fast)
>>> >
>>> > Neither of these are particularly good solutions.
>>> >
>>>
>>> I agree that neither of those are good solutions, but there is another
>>> option.
>>>
>>> Currently, the icons reside in each package and the desktop entry file
>>> (also in the individual packages) is used to associate the package with
>>> the icon.
>>>
>>> Why couldn't devel packages (and others without desktop entry files)
>>> follow a similar approach containing the icon and association?
>>
>> I think the problem then is you don't see the icon for the package until
>> you've installed the package.
>
> But, aren't they currently harvesting them from the packages and desktop
> entries?

Yes, as soon as you install the package, PackageKit parses the desktop
file and adds the icon file to a local database.

> Or, does pkg-application only show the icons for the packages I currently
> have installed?

Yup. The only way this could work for not-installed files would be for
the application icons to be put on the mirrors, and for PackageKit to
generate a per-user cache of icons in the session.

Richard.