Update the icon for the messaging menu

[Natalia Bidart]

Right now, Ubuntu One is using the default icon in the messaging menu, we should use one that matches the spec at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MessagingMenu#Application%20sections

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

I've created mono icons with the U1 logo. The icon name is "ubuntuone-panel" and I've attached them here.

[Natalia Bidart (nataliabidart)]

Thanks Daniel!

Thought I'm not sure exactly what to do with them. Roberto, could you please help me find out how should I be delivering those to the system?

[Natalia Bidart (nataliabidart)]

Subscribing Rodney and Eric to see if they have some hints on how to implement this.

[dobey (dobey)]

I think we need to stick this into the appropriate icon themes (one light, one dark), like the rest of the symbolic icons are for Ubuntu. This way we can work correctly when the user is using themes that don't provide symbolic icons, and when using different background colors for the widgets.

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

Attaching a new archive that contains icons for ubuntu-mono-dark and ubuntu-mono light.

These two folders simply need to be installed to "/usr/share/icons" and they'll work great :)

[Natalia Bidart (nataliabidart)]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for working on this. What I don't understand is how we should configure things in a way that the messaging entry uses the icons you just added, and at the same time have the main menu entry using the colorful one.
Would you know?

Cheers, Natalia.

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

The icons have different names ;) The menu icon is called "ubuntuone-panel"

[Natalia Bidart (nataliabidart)]

Daniel,

I understand that :-)
But, there is no explicit place we set an icon name for the messaging menu. We only set an "Icon" in the .dektop file for Ubuntu One, which covers everything in:

* the unity launcher
* the main menu
* the unity dash
* the messaging menu

I've asked around and as far as it looks there is no way to specifically set a different icon name for the messaging entry. Any thoughts?

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

Ah I see. I'm not sure how to handle that. I know that other applications do the same thing (for example Banshee does it in the sound menu). But I'm not sure of the technical details :/

[dobey (dobey)]

The apps that have mono icons in the indicators are specially cased in the code directly. Ubuntu One (and other apps) is not. I also think the icons you provide here need to ship in the ubuntu-mono-{light,dark} themes respectively, rather than in ubuntuone-client or ubuntuone-control-panel. We shouldn't be installing icons into other themes like that.

[Natalia Bidart (nataliabidart)]

Daniel,

any comments on the last comment? Thanks!

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

Hmm to me that sounds all around wrong. Why is it appropriate for an application to supply a color icon but not a monochrome icon? And it seems very odd that you would have to make an explicit exception in the indicator instead of it looking for a "-symbolic" or "-panel" icon by default then falling back. But I guess whatever needs to happen technically to make it work is what needs to happen.

[dobey (dobey)]

There are no provisions in the icon theme specs for providing symbolic application icons. If we shipped one that we installed to the hicolor theme, we could only ship either the light or the dark icon, but not both. There are no standard hicolor-symbols-light and hicolor-symbols-dark themes for providing these icons. And it is not appropriate for applications to install icons into arbitrary nonstandard themes. Therefore the monochrome icons for the app icon should be in the ubuntu-mono-{light,dark} themes, rather than shipped here.

And the system indicators do not automatically look for the -symbolic icons and fall back if not found, so there is no way for Ubuntu One to specify that the monochrome icon should be used there, but not in other places. This is a bug in the indicator, which I believe Naty filed, and Ted said he would fix soon in 11.04 for beta2.

[Chris Wilson (notgary-deactivatedaccount)]

What's happening with this bug? Does the new messaging menu in Quantal fix it?

[dobey (dobey)]

We no longer include any integration with the messaging menu.