move crystal icons to hicolour

[James Richard Tyrer]

Not to place the blame on JR, but this is a really stupid idea:

Jonathan Riddell wrote:
> Currently most KDE applications have an icon in Crystal but not in
> hicolour.  hicolour is the default fallback icon theme defined by the
> icon standard (the name being the old icon theme used by KDE which is
> now called kdeclassic).  Since KDE applications have no hicolour icons
> in most cases it means they lack an icon when used outwith KDE, mainly
> in Gnome's applications menu.
> 
> I'd like to move the application icons from Crystal to Hicolour to fix
> this.
> 
> Jonathan Riddell
> 

In his defense, other developers on kde-core-devel agreed with him. :-)

IMHO, it is based on arrogance.  I don't mean JR's arrogance, but rather
the corporate culture of the KDE Developers.  True arrogance is based on
presumptions.  The presumption here appears to be that everyone uses the
CrystalSVG icon theme -- no consideration was given to how this will
effect users that do not use the CrystalSVG icon theme.  The lack of
such consideration is also arrogance.  This arrogance is the same
arrogance that leads to a general disregard for the needs of the user,
and apparently a lack of compliance with published KDE standards.

I guess that the real question here is whether or not we want to
continue to support the HiColor icon theme.  I thought that this issue
was settled when FreeDesktop published a spec that I thought required
HiColor icons.

I suppose that your opinion on this question will affect your opinion on
the following.  I think that the icon themes are not a large mess (at
least in regard to CrystalSVG, HiColor, and KDEClassic.  There are two
main problems:

1.  HiColor icons have been removed from many apps.

     This is probably why many apps have a CrystalSVG icon and not a
     HiColor icon.

2.  HiColor icons have been renamed to CrystalSVG.

     This accomplishes nothing.  It doesn't make them CrystalSVG and they
     are still displayed exactly the same as if they were not renamed.

To me, these seem like serious errors that should be fixed ASAP.  But,
if you want to drop support for HiColor despite the new standard, I
suppose that these seem sensible.

I think that KDE must support the HiColor theme.  GNOME supports it.  I
presumed that support would mean that all applications would install
HiColor icons and optionally install the current default theme which is
now CrystalSVG (but which might be changed in the future).

There are various reasons to continue to support the HiColor theme.  One
is that it is probable that commercial users are not interested in the
"way cool" Crystal theme and will probably prefer the HiColor icons.  It
is also a fact that some of the Crystal icons are hard to see especially
in smaller sizes and/or on small screens.  Classic Information Theory
can prove that this is due to the fact that such icons contain less
information.

Clearly, this latest move makes the problem worse (if there is a
problem).  Now we have missing HiColor icons, HiColor icons renamed to
CrystalSVG, and CrystalSVG icons renamed to HiColor.  This is not a
rational way to do things.  It needs a resolution.

-- 
JRT