Re: Implementing Meta File information in Linux

Jamie Lokier (lkd@tantalophile.demon.co.uk)
Tue, 8 Sep 1998 15:45:10 +0100


On Mon, Sep 07, 1998 at 10:58:59PM +0000, Aaron Denney wrote:
> But you can put icons for an executable inside the file. Stick them
> in a new elf section. All you need to do is agree on a format or two.
> (And of course this doesn't work for scripts or a.out.)

Yes, much as I'm not interested in icons, this would seem to be what a
number of other operating systems do and it works just fine:

- Icons for executables embedded in the executable.
- Icons for data files derived from the file type.

I would suggest that to stick with Unix "script is an executable" idea,
there should be some way to embed an icon in a script too, if this is
the path taken. Obviously most times it would not be used, just perhaps
by application distributors wanting their icon on the script.

Otherwise application distributors will use C wrappers all over the
place just to get icons, because everyone else has them :-)

-- Jamie

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