xfce4-terminal doesn't search icons in XDG_DATA_DIRS

[Paulo Marcel Coelho Aragão]

xfce4-terminal doesn't search icons in XDG_DATA_DIRS.

For instance, this is my ~/.local/share/icons:

paulo:~/.local/share/icons$ ls -1
com.ozmartians.VidCutter.svg
duckietv.png
hicolor
io.github.quodlibet.QuodLibet-symbolic.svg
mupdf-icon.png
mutt.png
puddletag.xpm
zathura.png

and this is my XDG_DATA_DIRS:

XDG_DATA_DIRS=/home/paulo/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share:/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/:/usr/share/xubuntu:/usr/share/xfce4:/home/paulo/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share:/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share:/usr/local/share:/usr/share:/var/lib/snapd/desktop:/usr/share

If I run:

xfce4-terminal --icon mutt

the terminal window uses the standard xfce4-terminal icon. It only finds and uses icons in /usr/share or /usr/local/share.

It looks like it's hardcoding the location of the icons to /usr/share and /usr/local/share instead of respecting XDG_DATA_DIRS.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: xfce4-terminal 0.8.7.3-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-29.31-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-29-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: XFCE
Date: Wed Jul 18 20:04:25 2018
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-04-28 (81 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20180426)
SourcePackage: xfce4-terminal
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

This is probably caused by the following bug in Gtk, which causes it to get the directory search order wrong, and so user's icons cannot override the system icons:

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/issues/1115

Good news is its already fixed upstream.

[Paulo Marcel Coelho Aragão (marcelpaulo)]

Thanks for the gtk bug reference. whaticon is really useful !

But this seems to be a different bug: if an icon is not in the system paths, xfce4-terminal doesn't pick it up at all from the user paths.

paulo:~/tmp$ cp -v $(./whaticon system-file-manager) ~/.local/share/icons/foo.png
'/usr/share/icons/elementary-xfce/apps/22/system-file-manager.png' -> '/home/paulo/.local/share/icons/foo.png'
paulo:~/tmp$ ./whaticon foo
/home/paulo/.local/share/icons/foo.png
paulo:~/tmp$ xfce4-terminal --icon foo

Look at the screenshot I attached: xfce4-terminal didn't pick up foo.

[Theo Linkspfeifer (lastonestanding)]

I suggest that you forward this bug to the Xfce bug tracker.

https://bugzilla.xfce.org/

[Paulo Marcel Coelho Aragão (marcelpaulo)]

I would have thought that the Ubuntu package maintainer would do this, or am I mistaken? Otherwise I could have filed the bug directly upstream to begin with. But then again, if I had done that, what would be the purpose of filing Ubuntu bugs?

[Theo Linkspfeifer (lastonestanding)]

Ideally, the package maintainer would do it after confirming the bug, or ask the reporter to forward it upstream in case more information or feedback is required. I assume that this was not done due to the Xubuntu team being short-handed.

Nevertheless, opening an upstream report is in most cases the best choice (unless it is a packaging issue or some Ubuntu specific problem).

[Paulo Marcel Coelho Aragão (marcelpaulo)]

Many thanks for your careful and detailed suggestion. As a rule of thumb, I report upstream when I build the software from the latest trunk, since it's usually the first (and logical) requirement upstream teams present.

Once again, thanks for clearing this theme out!

[Theo Linkspfeifer (lastonestanding)]

Any news? I have checked with strace, and that gave me the hint to try and place the icon file in this location:

~/.local/share/icons/<theme>/<category>/<size>/icon.png

That worked.

[Sean Davis (bluesabre)]

Yes, this sounds correct. Icons are loaded from themes, not from just the icons directories. You can either place them in the hicolor theme or the one you are using.

[Theo Linkspfeifer (lastonestanding)]

This is not a bug then.