Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 20:37:01 -0700 (PDT) From: Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com> To: Tim Vanderhoek <vanderh@ecf.utoronto.ca> Cc: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com>, Joe Abley <jabley@clear.co.nz>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Adding desktop support Message-ID: <199904290337.UAA11634@apollo.backplane.com> References: <199904282017.NAA01044@dingo.cdrom.com> <19990429083638.B34373.kithrup.freebsd.hackers@gurney.reilly.home> <199904282244.PAA28325@kithrup.com> <19990429112538.D81921@clear.co.nz> <199904282331.RAA11927@mt.sri.com> <19990428232559.A47260@mad>
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I think the easiest way to deal with icons is to simply have an .icons.dbm
dbm file in each directory. i.e. /bin/.icons.dbm. /usr/bin/.icons.dbm.,
and so forth, and then allow the icons to be overridden by a .icons.dbm
file in each user's home directory or even overridden hierarchically.
When a binary is installed, its icons would be placed in the appropriate
dbm file via a simple call to an icon support library. Problem solved.
After all, you might want icons for things other then files. For example,
directories, softlinks, unix domain sockets, devices. Whatever.
I think modifying the filesystem to provide a metadata extension for
files is ridiculous. Embedding icons in binaries also seems pretty silly
considering that sophisticated applications tend to need auxillary ( and
often editable ) data anyway. For example, configuration files. These
do not belong embedded in the binaries and neither do (potentially
customizable) icons.
-Matt
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