Can I change the icon of an application?

[Duncan]

Dun Peal posted on Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:48:54 -0500 as excerpted:

> In latest Kubuntu, is there a way to change the icon of an application
> throughout the KDE desktop?
> 
> For example, I'd like to have a launcher that launches a Konsole
> instance that has a blackboard image as its icon, instead of the default
> one. It should supercede the icon not just in the launcher, but also in
> the taskbar and everywhere else it's used.
> 
> Is that possible?

Assuming kubuntu is standard kde in this regard...

There are two possible ways your question could be taken, with two 
different possible solutions.

1) If you want to change the icon for ever instance of an app (for 
example, all konsole sessions will use the same one, just a different one 
than used now):

Change the icon theme, or just the single icon in the theme.  To see 
which theme you have currently selected and to change it if desired, kde 
settings, common appearance and behavior, application appearance, icons.  
Note that in addition to the built-in themes, you can hit the get new 
themes button and a selection of new themes as found on kde-look.org 
should show up.  However, you may wish to actually browse kde-look to get 
more details about them than the built-in download applet provides.

If you wish to change individual icons, not entire themes, once you know 
the theme in use, you can swap out the actual icon files as found under
/usr/share/icons/<theme>, normal system-wide location (but the distro or 
admin may change it), or the user location, tho I'm not sure whether it's 
using the KDEHOME or XDG_DATA_HOME location (~/.kde/share/icons or 
~/.local/share/icons, I believe the defaults would be, I've changed 
mine).  Again, if you want more variety, install other themes and mix and 
match into your own custom theme, as desired.

2) If OTOH you only want one particular launched instance, for example, a 
special konsole profile, to have its own icon (but to use it everywhere 
for that profile, including the launcher and when running, etc), while 
other instances stay with their normal icons, that's possible too.

Use the kde menu editor, kmenuedit run from krunner, or context/secondary/
right click on the launch menu icon (kickoff or lancelot or classic or 
whatever) and select edit applications.  Find the appropriate launcher 
entry, copy and paste it if you want a second one with different settings 
(like a different icon), and set them.  Save your changes, and you should 
be set.

That edits them for your specific user.  To edit them system-wide, edit 
the individual *.desktop files, under /usr/share/applications/kde4, here 
on Gentoo.  A normal text editor works fine, and it's the Icon= line you 
want to edit.  (Be careful not to change any other lines if you don't 
understand what they do.)

Of course, edits to the system-wide location will likely get lost when 
the package containing those files gets updated, so you may wish to 
either do it per-user (which should be safe from system updates), or keep 
copies of your changed files somewhere so you can simply copy them back 
after an update, if needed.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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