[kde-linux] Why are taskbar icons sometimes a big X?

[Larry Alkoff]

Chris Peterman wrote:
> On Saturday 15 July 2006 01:04, Larry Alkoff wrote:
>> I have some programs that have perfectly good icons on the desktop
>> but when I open them, the icon in the task bar box is a large X that
>> looks hand drawn.
>>
>> A good case in point is Thunderbird which has a lovely icon of an
>> envelope in version 1.5.0.4 that appears in the desktop boxes as a big
>> hand drawn X.
>>
>> By taskbar I mean the boxes for each desktop that typically show the
>> program icon.  Please correct my nomenclature so I can call it correctly.
>>
>> How can I get the normal desktop icon to display there like other apps?
>>
>> Larry
> 
> Only thing I can think of is that the icons you want to use don't have 
> versions in the size that is needed. 
> 
> As an example, take a look in your ~/.icons (thats where they are put for like 
> GNOME and XFCE, and KDE also looks there for them) and look in one of the 
> theme folders, you will see a bunch of folders named 12x12, 64x64, etc, which 
> are all the sizes that the icons may be needed in. Now if you can get your 
> hands on a SVG version of the icon, KDE should take care of the resize by 
> itself (SHOULD, I don't know how well SVG Icon Support is in KDE or anything 
> else for that matter). Otherwise just make a copy of the icon in those pixel 
> sizes (any image program should be able to handle it).
> 
> I hope that made sense :D
> 

Thanks for your reply Chris.
I have more information now.

There is no ~/.icon folder but I think I'll make one and hard link any 
useful icons found so they won't get lost.

The locate program tells me that there are Thunderbird icons (and 
others) scattered in quite a few directories in my Ubuntu system - it's 
very confusing.

There are 12 icons of various sizes in /usr/share/pixmaps.
They come only in 32x32 and 48x48 in either .png and .xpm plus a much 
larger size in .svg (no size available probably because they are scalable).

How can I tell _exactly_ which icon is on the desktop?  Is there a program?

There is a text file about the desktop icon in ~/Desktop but it only 
lists the name, not size or path.  From the name 
"mozilla-thunderbird-menu" I infer it must be either a 32x32 .xpm or .png.

I've created another line in ~/Desktop to create another desktop icon 
named 'Thunderbird Mail orig.desktop' and am going to experiment on the 
original icon,
first with a .svg but also .xpm and .png to see how they behave.

Again, I really need a program that tells me the path and size of an 
existing icon.

Larry

-- 
Larry Alkoff N2LA - Austin TX
Using Thunderbird on Linux