N900 theming with custom iconsets

[jukata]

I'm currently working on themes for N900 with custom iconsets and I'm wondering if there is a list available with all "factory default" icons needed to make a theme work well? I'm guessing that Theme Maker icon template doesn't (yet?) have placeholder graphics for all the necessary icons.

I'm also guessing that I have to design and include all icons into a TM icon template, and in case of missing icons the system will not revert to default icons, eg. if I make a theme with 15 custom icons the missing icons will not be provided by the system, am I right?

If you happen to be making themes with custom iconsets for N900 too and you're willing to share a list or screenshots with all necessary "factory default" icons it would be great! Until I have the device it will be much easier to think of metaphors if I know what each icon is supposed to represent :)

Thanks for all the help I've received from this community so far just by browsing the threads. It's a great resource.

[andrewfblack]

I'm currently working on themes for N900 with custom iconsets and I'm wondering if there is a list available with all "factory default" icons needed to make a theme work well? I'm guessing that Theme Maker icon template doesn't (yet?) have placeholder graphics for all the necessary icons.

I'm also guessing that I have to design and include all icons into a TM icon template, and in case of missing icons the system will not revert to default icons, eg. if I make a theme with 15 custom icons the missing icons will not be provided by the system, am I right?

If you happen to be making themes with custom iconsets for N900 too and you're willing to share a list or screenshots with all necessary "factory default" icons it would be great! Until I have the device it will be much easier to think of metaphors if I know what each icon is supposed to represent :)

Thanks for all the help I've received from this community so far just by browsing the threads. It's a great resource.

First off yes any missing icons will revert to default icons if your theme is setup right to include the icon set and the correct name for the default icon set. If that is wrong then it will not revert back to defaults. All in all if you want to do a custom icon for everything your looking at several hundred icons. Once you get your n900 I can help you to find the icons folders if you need me to so you can get the names of them all. Since the n900 is not released yet I really don't want be post any screenshots of all the icons yet. If you need any help with your themes let me know.

[ian_ryge]

I'm wondering if there is a list available with all "factory default" icons needed to make a theme work well?
On an N900:
/usr/share/icons/
On a PC with the Fremantle SDK installed:
/scratchbox/users/maemo/targets/FREMANTLE_X86/usr/share/icons/

I'm also guessing that I have to design and include all icons into a TM icon template, and in case of missing icons the system will not revert to default icons, eg. if I make a theme with 15 custom icons the missing icons will not be provided by the system, am I right?
Nope, like Andrew said, you can make an icon theme as complete or incomplete as you want, and the icons you don't include will default to the built-in graphics. Of course, if you make a template that includes *all* the icons, then yes, you'd need to make something for all of them or your icon theme will include blanks which would be used instead of the defaults.


If you happen to be making themes with custom iconsets for N900 too and you're willing to share a list or screenshots with all necessary "factory default" icons it would be great!

I'm working intermittently on some new themes, and I probably will use a custom icon template which will cover more than Theme Maker currently does, but not the complete set. You can see the icon template for the old Okuda theme (for Maemo 4) here (http://faceted.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/preview-of-our-new-maemo-theme/). That post also includes the Python script my brother wrote to generate the custom layout, which could be useful if you want to make your own icon template. We sliced the templates and built the themes using hildon-theme-tools instead of Theme Maker, but I'm sure you could make TM use a custom layout too. Anyway, if you don't get around to making your own icon template, ours will be available when it's ready (which could be a while, as I don't have an N900 so I'm not sure what icons I'll want to include).

[Renesis]

If I make an icon for an application that a user has not installed yet, when the user installs that application will it (maemo5) use the applications icon or the icon from my icon set?

[pelago]

If I make an icon for an application that a user has not installed yet, when the user installs that application will it (maemo5) use the applications icon or the icon from my icon set?
That's a very good question. Does anyone know?

[ian_ryge]

If I make an icon for an application that a user has not installed yet, when the user installs that application will it (maemo5) use the applications icon or the icon from my icon set?

I haven't actually tested this on Maemo 5, but I'm fairly certain it would use your icon when your theme is in use, and the default icon with the built-in themes, even if the user installs the app in question sometime after installing your theme. (This is assuming your theme installs the icon in the correct place, i.e. /usr/share/icons/THEME_NAME/[...] Obviously if you were to install the custom icon in the same place the app puts its default icon, it wouldn't work right.)