User Switcher Applet (FUSA) icons do not match Pidgin

[Richard Laager]

Judging from bug #262083, the icons in the user switcher applet came from Empathy.

Currently, Pidgin is the default IM client in Ubuntu. The icons in the FUSA don't match the icons in Pidgin, which is confusing and ugly.

Even if Pidgin weren't the default IM client, how on earth does a red triangle mean someone is away?

For those looking for a work-around, the following shell commands will divert the FUSA icons away and symlink in the Pidgin ones:
    dir=/usr/share/fast-user-switch-applet/icons/hicolor
    for status in offline busy online away ; do
        for size in 16 22 32 48 ; do
            file=$dir/${size}x${size}/status/user-$status.png
            dpkg-divert --divert $file.fusa --rename $file
            [ $status = "online" ] && status=available
            ln -s /usr/share/pixmaps/pidgin/status/$size/$status.png $file
        done
    done

[Endolith (endolith)]

Yes, this is annoying

[Richard Laager (rlaager)]

I spoke with Ted Gould today and he said this was because Pidgin doesn't follow the Freedesktop.org Icon Naming Spec: http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html

Pidgin needs to rename the icons it installs to match the names in the icon-naming-spec. Then, it should use gtk_icon_theme_append_search_path() to append its directory to the end of the path (on GTK+ 2.4 and above) to provide the default icons if the user's theme doesn't define them. Then icons should be loaded with gtk_icon_theme_lookup_icon() on GTK+ 2.4 and above. (The fallback code can just load the icons from Pidgin's own directory.)

On the Ubuntu side, once that is done, we'll want to ensure that the Human theme ships the nice Pidgin icons. ;)

[Richard Laager (rlaager)]

Kenneth Wimer mentioned that KDE has added additional icon names on top of the icon naming spec. Pidgin should look at those to ensure we match when possible.

[Endolith (endolith)]

Has a bug been filed with Pidgin yet?

Your search - site:pidgin.im icon-naming-spec - did not match any documents.

[Endolith (endolith)]

Can someone please file an upstream bug about this? I'd do it but I don't understand exactly what needs to be done with the icon naming spec.

[Luke Faraone (lfaraone)]

These icons will not be changed in FUSA, we're using the official empathy icons from GNOME.

[Endolith (endolith)]

If you change your icon theme, you can get rid of the ugly Empathy icons. The "GNOME-colors" Icon Theme, for instance, uses the Pidgin icons. Should we file a bug about the default icon set?

[Manuel Muradás (dieresys)]

Hi.
Ok, you are using Empathy icons. Could you explain me why they are representing "Away" with a strong red color and "Busy" with a light color and a note like saying "By right back"? It's really confusing. Most IM clients don't use that color convention. They look switched to me.

[tehownt (tehownt)]

I totally agree, the only icon that makes sense is the "Online" one.
There should be a way to change those icons manually, so that they match the user-decided theme. Is there a way to do that ?

[Kenneth Wimer (kwwii)]

I disagree with the name of the bug. We have no plans to make these icons look like the pidgin icons

[Endolith (endolith)]

For clarification:

Current style
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hoL9qH83NDM/SRCdH-Lx-vI/AAAAAAAAAUc/vOLPdF4h228/s320/User+Switcher+Active.png

Pidgin style
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Cw7m2k1zSeA/SX21ZOERd8I/AAAAAAAACDw/9x-W1UfMfLg/s400/pidgin%2Bubuntu.jpg

Agreed that red for Away and yellow for Busy makes no sense. The Pidgin icons are much better looking

[Przemek K. (azrael)]

Forwarded the bug upstream