Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 16:47:35 +1000 (EST) From: John Birrell <jb@cimlogic.com.au> To: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Adding desktop support Message-ID: <199904280647.QAA26783@cimlogic.com.au>
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I'm working on an application that is targeted at users who, based on their exposure to a certain commercial OS, expect to be able to point and clip their way through life, and to recognise things by little pictures. There are a few things that I'd like to add to FreeBSD to support this sort of application. The first is to build icon pixmaps into each executable program. Now that we've made the transition to ELF, adding an XPM formatted pixmap to a program is simply a matter of: objcopy --add-section=.icon=file.xpm file I could just keep this in my local tree, but that would mean that I have to build my own distribution and that 3rd-party vendor software won't contain icons (like it would if built for Windows). I'm hoping that there is sufficient interest to convince those people who will no doubt be horrified by doing such a think to a UNIX operating system. (Some of those people don't read this list, but that's another problem). I've hacked up a demo application which you can get from <http://www.freebsd.org/~jb/>; if you are interested in what I am proposing. The demo program (filedemo) requires an X server, was statically linked on a 4.0-current system, but will probably run on 3.X-whatever. The program displays a tree widget that allows directories to be opened and closed, with open directories listing the files with their icons. If the file is executable, in ELF format and has a .icon section, the demo program will convert the .icon data to a pixmap and display that instead of the default pixmap. I've also put up a modified bsd.prog.mk to allow pixmaps to be built into programs during `make world'. Using the modified bsd.prog.mk, any program built with ICON_NAME=file.xpm in the Makefile will have a .icon section added containing the contents of the file.xpm. Assuming that this proposal doesn't get shot down in flames, I'd like to hear from users (some of whom probably only listen to this list) who would like to contribute pixmaps for the myriad of programs in FreeBSD. This is a task best done by non-developers who can look at things from a non-source perspective. I have to admit that I find the thought of having to create so many pixmaps somewhat daunting. Surely there is someone listening who has a flair for that sort of thing and wants a chance to contribute to FreeBSD. I chose the hackers list rather than current, committers or arch in the hope that more user-type people will read this. -- John Birrell - jb@cimlogic.com.au; jb@freebsd.org http://www.cimlogic.com.au/ CIMlogic Pty Ltd, GPO Box 117A, Melbourne Vic 3001, Australia +61 418 353 137 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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