gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Tassilo Horn]

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Hi all,

I've just accidentially discovered `gnus-group-icon-list', although it
seems to have been there fore ages.  And because customizing it to get a
more visual representation of the unreadness and tickyness of a group
I've thought I just share it:

,----[ C-h v gnus-group-icon-list RET ]
| gnus-group-icon-list is a variable defined in `gnus-group.el'.
| Its value is (((> unread 0)
|   . "/usr/share/icons/gnome/16x16/status/mail-unread.png")
|  ((> ticked 0)
|   . "/usr/share/icons/gnome/16x16/actions/mail-mark-important.png")
|  (t . "/usr/share/icons/gnome/16x16/status/mail-read.png"))
`----

Screenshot:

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Bye,
Tassilo
-- 
Sent from my Emacs

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Julien Danjou]

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On Fri, Mar 18 2011, Tassilo Horn wrote:

> I've just accidentially discovered `gnus-group-icon-list', although it
> seems to have been there fore ages.  And because customizing it to get a
> more visual representation of the unreadness and tickyness of a group

It has been here for ages but did not work until I recently fixed it.
;-)

If only Gnus had some default icon shipped with it, we could made some
nice stuff like that on by default… ;)

-- 
Julien Danjou
❱ http://julien.danjou.info

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Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Olivier Sirven]

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On 2011-03-18 08:43:47, Tassilo Horn <tassilo@member.fsf.org> wrote:
> I've just accidentially discovered `gnus-group-icon-list', although it
> seems to have been there fore ages.  And because customizing it to get a
> more visual representation of the unreadness and tickyness of a group
> I've thought I just share it:

Hey,

Yeah I got that too since Julien fixed it. Here is a little screenshot
see you can see how it looks

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--
Olivier

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Tassilo Horn]

Julien Danjou <julien@danjou.info> writes:

Hi Julien,

>> I've just accidentially discovered `gnus-group-icon-list', although
>> it seems to have been there fore ages.  And because customizing it to
>> get a more visual representation of the unreadness and tickyness of a
>> group
>
> It has been here for ages but did not work until I recently fixed it.
> ;-)
>
> If only Gnus had some default icon shipped with it, we could made some
> nice stuff like that on by default… ;)

Well, at least on GNU/Linux, it is highly likely that the Gnome icon
theme is installed.  But you are right that some Gnus icon theme would
be better.  There are icons for marking individual mails in
/usr/share/icons/ (that I use), but no real mailbox icons.

Bye,
Tassilo
-- 
Sent from my Emacs

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Tassilo Horn]

Olivier Sirven <the.slaa@gmail.com> writes:

Hi Olivier,

> Yeah I got that too since Julien fixed it. Here is a little screenshot
> see you can see how it looks

These icons look really nice. :-)

Bye,
Tassilo
-- 
Sent from my Emacs

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2011 13:25:16 +0100 Tassilo Horn <tassilo@member.fsf.org> wrote: 

TH> Julien Danjou <julien@danjou.info> writes:
TH> Hi Julien,

>>> I've just accidentially discovered `gnus-group-icon-list', although
>>> it seems to have been there fore ages.  And because customizing it to
>>> get a more visual representation of the unreadness and tickyness of a
>>> group
>> 
>> It has been here for ages but did not work until I recently fixed it.
>> ;-)
>> 
>> If only Gnus had some default icon shipped with it, we could made some
>> nice stuff like that on by default… ;)

TH> Well, at least on GNU/Linux, it is highly likely that the Gnome icon
TH> theme is installed.  But you are right that some Gnus icon theme would
TH> be better.  There are icons for marking individual mails in
TH> /usr/share/icons/ (that I use), but no real mailbox icons.

Maybe the Silk icon theme could be included?  Here's the whole thing in
one file (individual icons are available):

http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/previews/index_abc.png

There are lots of email_* icons and it's generally a very good theme,
widely used which brings us well-known associations of image to
meaning.  A Gnus-specific theme is not easy to make and we'd have to
teach our users new visual associations for all the meanings that Silk
brings in.

The license is http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ which
according to http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/ works for Debian.
So it should be OK for Gnus as well.  Opinions?

Thanks
Ted

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Julien Danjou]

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On Fri, Mar 18 2011, Ted Zlatanov wrote:
> The license is http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ which
> according to http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/ works for Debian.
> So it should be OK for Gnus as well.  Opinions?

That gave me an idea. What about implementing and using:

     http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-theme-spec/icon-theme-spec-latest.html

     http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html

-- 
Julien Danjou
❱ http://julien.danjou.info

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Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:41:56 +0100 Julien Danjou <julien@danjou.info> wrote: 

JD> On Fri, Mar 18 2011, Ted Zlatanov wrote:
>> The license is http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ which
>> according to http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/ works for Debian.
>> So it should be OK for Gnus as well.  Opinions?

JD> That gave me an idea. What about implementing and using:

JD>      http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-theme-spec/icon-theme-spec-latest.html
JD>      http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html

We could, I guess.  But why not just include Silk?  What's the advantage
of using this standard over just using the simple names Silk provides?

Ted

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Julien Danjou]

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On Fri, Mar 18 2011, Ted Zlatanov wrote:

> We could, I guess.  But why not just include Silk?  What's the advantage
> of using this standard over just using the simple names Silk provides?

Well, that'd allow to use the same theme the user is using for its
desktop. Which would be neater. :)

-- 
Julien Danjou
❱ http://julien.danjou.info

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Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:01:41 +0100 Julien Danjou <julien@danjou.info> wrote: 

JD> On Fri, Mar 18 2011, Ted Zlatanov wrote:
>> We could, I guess.  But why not just include Silk?  What's the advantage
>> of using this standard over just using the simple names Silk provides?

JD> Well, that'd allow to use the same theme the user is using for its
JD> desktop. Which would be neater. :)

Oh, I see.  But we can't rely on a theme to provide all the icons Gnus
needs, either.  So maybe it should be user-specified, defaulting to "try
the current Gnome theme first, then use Silk/custom fallbacks".  But the
user could specify priorities as a list of: a specific Gnome theme, the
default Gnome theme, or just use Silk.  Is that close to what you're
thinking?

Ted

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Julien Danjou]

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On Fri, Mar 18 2011, Ted Zlatanov wrote:

> Oh, I see.  But we can't rely on a theme to provide all the icons Gnus
> needs, either. 

In that case you just fall back on the default theme.

> So maybe it should be user-specified, defaulting to "try the current
> Gnome theme first, then use Silk/custom fallbacks". But the user could
> specify priorities as a list of: a specific Gnome theme, the default
> Gnome theme, or just use Silk. Is that close to what you're thinking?

Yes, if Silk is a desktop theme, i.e. I don't think we should provide
any theme ourself.

-- 
Julien Danjou
❱ http://julien.danjou.info

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Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:11:22 +0100 Julien Danjou <julien@danjou.info> wrote: 

JD> On Fri, Mar 18 2011, Ted Zlatanov wrote:
>> Oh, I see.  But we can't rely on a theme to provide all the icons Gnus
>> needs, either. 

JD> In that case you just fall back on the default theme.

What about systems that don't have any themes?

>> So maybe it should be user-specified, defaulting to "try the current
>> Gnome theme first, then use Silk/custom fallbacks". But the user could
>> specify priorities as a list of: a specific Gnome theme, the default
>> Gnome theme, or just use Silk. Is that close to what you're thinking?

JD> Yes, if Silk is a desktop theme, i.e. I don't think we should provide
JD> any theme ourself.

Why not?  We do now.

Gnome themes don't provide all the icons Gnus needs according to
http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html
(although they have a nice selection of MIME types and emoticons).  Gnus
has a set that partly overlaps with the freedesktop.org stuff in etc/images.

Ted

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2011 10:08:01 -0500 Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> wrote: 

TZ> Oh, I see.  But we can't rely on a theme to provide all the icons Gnus
TZ> needs, either.  So maybe it should be user-specified, defaulting to "try
TZ> the current Gnome theme first, then use Silk/custom fallbacks".  But the
TZ> user could specify priorities as a list of: a specific Gnome theme, the
TZ> default Gnome theme, or just use Silk.  Is that close to what you're
TZ> thinking?

The flag-AA (where AA is the country code) are really nice too.  I
didn't see those sooner.

Ted

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Julien Danjou]

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On Fri, Mar 18 2011, Ted Zlatanov wrote:

> What about systems that don't have any themes?
> Why not?  We do now.
> Gnome themes don't provide all the icons Gnus needs according to
> http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html
> (although they have a nice selection of MIME types and emoticons).  Gnus
> has a set that partly overlaps with the freedesktop.org stuff in etc/images.

Well, you're right, this cannot be as bad as I though if we default to
using user or system default theme, and fallback to Gnus images in last
resort.

-- 
Julien Danjou
❱ http://julien.danjou.info

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Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Tassilo Horn]

Julien Danjou <julien@danjou.info> writes:

> On Fri, Mar 18 2011, Ted Zlatanov wrote:
>> The license is http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ which
>> according to http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/ works for Debian.
>> So it should be OK for Gnus as well.  Opinions?
>
> That gave me an idea. What about implementing and using:
>
>      http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-theme-spec/icon-theme-spec-latest.html
>
>      http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html

That would be nice.

However, it seems that the usual desktop themes (Tango, Gnome,
Rodent,...) don't contain any email folder icons.  The best you can get
is using either file manager directory icons that don't really indicate
new or ticked mail, or email icons that are more appropriate for marking
single mails.

Anyway, using that standard is still the way to go.  But I wouldn't ship
a theme with Gnus.

Bye,
Tassilo
-- 
Sent from my Emacs

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Christoph Conrad]

Hi Tassilo,

really nice, beautiful eye candy! I set `gnus-group-icon-list' exactly
as you did; when the group buffer appears after starting up Gnus a lot
of ImageMagick instances fire up, each showing an icon (in the middle of
the screen).

So something in my configuration obviously is confusing Gnus. Does
anyone has an idea what could be going wrong?

Regards,
Christoph

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Tassilo Horn]

Christoph Conrad <christoph.conrad@gmx.de> writes:

Hi Christoph,

> really nice, beautiful eye candy! I set `gnus-group-icon-list' exactly
> as you did; when the group buffer appears after starting up Gnus a lot
> of ImageMagick instances fire up, each showing an icon (in the middle
> of the screen).
>
> So something in my configuration obviously is confusing Gnus. Does
> anyone has an idea what could be going wrong?

Not really, but there are some variables with "external" in their name
that might be related.  So check your configs for one of those.

Bye,
Tassilo
-- 
Sent from my Emacs

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Christoph Conrad]

Hi Tassilo,

thank you for giving me a hint.

> Not really, but there are some variables with "external" in their name
> that might be related. So check your configs for one of those.

It had nothing to do with that, so i had to dig into it with the elisp
debugger.

The relevant (reversed) call stack looks like this:

- gnus-group-get-icon
-> gnus-create-image
-> create-image
-> image-type
-> image-type-from-file-header
-> insert-file-contents-literally

`insert-file-contents-literally' inhibits some file name handlers by
setting `inhibit-file-name-handlers'. I use the package "openwith" from
Markus Triska and he enables it by using

(add-to-list 'file-name-handler-alist '("" . openwith-file-handler)))

so for png files the external program "display" was used anyway. I
worked around that using

(defadvice gnus-group-get-icon( around gnus-group-get-icon-no-openwith act )
  (let (openwith-mode)
    ad-do-it))

now. If you know a better way doing that, i would like to read about it.

Regards,
Christoph

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Christoph Conrad]

Hi Ted,

> We could, I guess. But why not just include Silk? What's the advantage
> of using this standard over just using the simple names Silk provides?

I tried them, and installed some of them now with gnus-group-icon-list -
indeed: very beautiful icons. I like escpecially that the email icons
are not so visually intrusive, despite of that good to recognize.

Regards,
Christoph

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:31:02 +0100 Christoph Conrad <christoph.conrad@gmx.de> wrote: 

>> We could, I guess. But why not just include Silk? What's the advantage
>> of using this standard over just using the simple names Silk provides?

CC> I tried them, and installed some of them now with gnus-group-icon-list -
CC> indeed: very beautiful icons. I like escpecially that the email icons
CC> are not so visually intrusive, despite of that good to recognize.

Could you share your `gnus-group-icon-list' using Silk?  I'll work with
that as a starting point and also use the freedesktop.org specs Julien
mentioned to consolidate Gnome themes and Silk icons into
`gnus-group-icon-list'.

Thanks
Ted

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Christoph Conrad]

Hi Ted,

> Could you share your `gnus-group-icon-list' using Silk?

Sure; exactly "some of them" means only "three". Below my complete
configuration, it is Tassilos configuration with silk icons; pick the
parts you need.

Regards,
Christoph

(setq gnus-group-line-format "%M%S%p%P%E%3y: %(%G%)%l\n")

;; "Silk" Icon-Theme <http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/>
(setq gnus-group-icon-list
      '(((> unread 0)
         . "~/e/silk-email-icons/email_go.png")
        ((> ticked 0)
         . "~/e/silk-email-icons/email_add.png")
        (t . "~/e/silk-email-icons/email.png")))

;; suppress opening "png" with "display"
(defadvice gnus-group-get-icon( around gnus-group-get-icon-no-openwith act )
  (let (openwith-mode)
    ad-do-it))

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Eric S Fraga]

Christoph Conrad <christoph.conrad@gmx.de> writes:

> Hi Ted,
>
>> Could you share your `gnus-group-icon-list' using Silk?
>
> Sure; exactly "some of them" means only "three". Below my complete
> configuration, it is Tassilos configuration with silk icons; pick the
> parts you need.
>
> Regards,
> Christoph
>
> (setq gnus-group-line-format "%M%S%p%P%E%3y: %(%G%)%l\n")
>
> ;; "Silk" Icon-Theme <http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/>
> (setq gnus-group-icon-list
>       '(((> unread 0)
>          . "~/e/silk-email-icons/email_go.png")
>         ((> ticked 0)
>          . "~/e/silk-email-icons/email_add.png")
>         (t . "~/e/silk-email-icons/email.png")))

Lovely icons.  I chose flag_blue.png for the ticked one, mind you.

-- 
: Eric S Fraga (GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D) in Emacs 24.0.50.1 + No Gnus v0.16

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Thu, 24 Mar 2011 10:23:54 +0000 Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> wrote: 

ESF> Christoph Conrad <christoph.conrad@gmx.de> writes:
>> ;; "Silk" Icon-Theme <http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/>
...
ESF> Lovely icons.  I chose flag_blue.png for the ticked one, mind you.

I'm trying to get Silk included in Emacs core or in the GNU ELPA
repository (thread on emacs-devel).  If anyone wants to voice their
support or has comments, it would probably help the process.

Ted

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Thu, 24 Mar 2011 10:16:37 -0500 Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> wrote: 

TZ> On Thu, 24 Mar 2011 10:23:54 +0000 Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> wrote: 
ESF> Christoph Conrad <christoph.conrad@gmx.de> writes:
>>> ;; "Silk" Icon-Theme <http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/>
TZ> ...
ESF> Lovely icons.  I chose flag_blue.png for the ticked one, mind you.

TZ> I'm trying to get Silk included in Emacs core or in the GNU ELPA
TZ> repository (thread on emacs-devel).  If anyone wants to voice their
TZ> support or has comments, it would probably help the process.

OK, it will live in the GNU ELPA.  I'll put together some code to modify
gnus-group-icon-list if iconset.el and iconset-silk.el are loaded (but
those packages are not written so don't expect this quickly).

Thanks
Ted

Re: gnus-group-icon-list considered funky

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Olivier Sirven <the.slaa@gmail.com> writes:

> Yeah I got that too since Julien fixed it. Here is a little screenshot
> see you can see how it looks

Nice.  :-)

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen