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

[Larry Alkoff]

James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> Larry Alkoff wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> With Thunderbird and Firefox, this isn't the problem.  This is a
> developer level question that I don't have the exact answer for.
> 
> However, I can tell you how to fix it.  Open the 'desktop' file for 
> Thunderbird and first make sure that it contains:
> 
> 	Icon=thunderbird
> 
> If so, are you getting the correct icon in the menu?  If so, you can fix 
> the problem by changing this line:
> 
> 	Exec=thunderbird %i
> 
> Adding the "%i" will force KDE to use the menu icon for the TaskBar and 
> in the KWin window decorations.
> 

Thanks for the advice James but it didn't use the same icon on the 
taskbar Desktop window.

I added " %i" to the end of the command line of the Thunderbird _icon_ 
which had the effect of changing the Exec line in the ~/Desktop file as 
you have specified above.  However, the icon now appears as something 
that looks like two blank desktops one on top of the other at a 45 
degree angle.  Is this what you called the "menu icon"?  It's no longer 
a big X but I'd really like it to be the same as the Desktop icon.

Where do you find documentation on this stuff?

Larry

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