The current policy on xpm/xbm icons
When I took over fvwm95 four or so months ago, I found, among other
various bugs filed against it, a bug stating that the load of .xpm
files shipped with fvwm95 should be moved to
/usr/X11/include/X11/pixmaps - now, this was an easy bug to fix and so
I did just that: moved the .xpm files and closed the bug. Now I'm
thinking that perhaps that wasn't the best thing to do.
Debian needs a consistent policy on where icons go - I noticed that in
the January Debian Policy Week(?)ly the icon policy is listed as
"something to be addressed" in future Policy weeklys; however, the
few policy weeklys published since then don't seem to address it at
all.
The documentation for the menu package strongly suggests that all
icons go into /usr/X11R6/include/X11/{bitmap,pixmap}. However, I
don't think that that provision is meant to apply to icons distributed
with window managers, and I certainly think that the reasoning behind
that fails with window managers. The reasoning behind having one
central location is that different packages can come with their own
icons, can declare said icons in their menu file, and the window
manager can then include the icon in the menu it generates. Pretty.
Now, with window managers it makes sense to have their own icon
directories. First off, many window managers come with a whole load
of icons - it makes little sense to flood /usr/X11/include/X11/pixmaps
with that. Second, many generically-named icons come with window
managers - this leads to annoying overwriting conflicts between window
managers. (Notice, for example, that the hamm fvwm95 Replaces: the bo
afterstep - one stupid .xpm file made this necessary)
So, I guess I'm asking eventually for a policy decision. I don't
really have an opinion on _which_ directory names are decided on for
icons so long as:
1) there is a central place for icons that packageA wishes to make
available to all other packages. (for example, the
xemacs20-support package might place xemacs.xpm in this location)
- the docs to the menu package suggest
/usr/X11R6/include/X11/{bitmaps,pixmaps} for this, but other
possibilities exist (some packages are already using
/usr/share/icons for this purpose)
2) There's a defined policy on how a package should choose where to
put icons that it uses internally (for example, the .xpm files that
come in xemacs20-support that are used by w3 fall into this
category). This need not be anything too definite; even a policy
that says 'somewhere under /usr/share/{package}' is better than a
policy that says ''.
It would probably be a good idea if window managers had stricter
guidelines about where to put icons than other packages, as wm's
tend to all use their icons for the same purpose.
3) Window managers are given a directory into which they must not
put any icons but which they must search for icons - this should be
something under /usr/local or /usr/share/local or similar. The
idea, of course, is to allow the local sysadmin to add her own
icons to be used by all installed window managers.
4) This decision about icons becomes actual policy, rather than just a
vague consensus followed by packagers who hear about it through the
grapevine.
That about covers it - we may also want to consider the difference
between "regular" icons (suitable for a desktop) and "mini" icons
(suitable for menus (or taskbars ;-) )).
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