Re: [RFC] icon fix requires additional tools to build Octave from hg

[PhilipNienhuis]

Mike Miller wrote
> Maintainers,
> 
> Bug #37062 [1] is about providing the Octave logo in the file formats
> and various resolutions required by a set of operating systems that we
> want to support. This is fairly important with the upcoming release of
> the GUI to support graphical launchers for Octave in a variety of
> operating system graphical shells and desktop environments. I have
> proposed a patch to address this, but it adds new external
> dependencies on a couple of tools needed to create the icon file
> formats. Adding build-dependencies is not a trivial change, so
> bringing it here for more attention.
> 
> If I push the change I am suggesting (on the gui-release branch), the
> SVG Octave logo becomes the source and other icon formats are build
> artifacts. Building from the Mercurial repository will require two
> free tools to do a complete build including all icon file formats,
> icotool and rsvg-convert. These programs will be detected by configure
> and used if they are found on the build host. They will be mandatory
> for building the "dist" target, optional for all others. Built icons
> (PNGs and ICOs) will be included in the source distribution but not in
> the Mercurial repository.

At first sight it seems a bit ridiculous to have to add even a small number
of dependencies just to build something as trivial and immutable as a logo.
Logos (graphics files) are supposed to be in portable formats.

Felipe wrote that Windows only accepts .ico files. But when I make a desktop
shortcut in Windows, I can use the .png file in share/.../imagelib as well.

Can't we
1. Include the Octave logo in a limited number of widely accepted/portable
file formats (e.g., png and/or svg)
and
2. add a configure check for the new dependencies for those platforms that
do not accept mainstream graphics file formats for a logo?

Anyway, given he number of developers/contributors having commented on the
bug in question I wonder if the decision hasn't already been made
implicitly. John doesn't want generated files in mercurial - I understand
why and I'd agree, but every principle has practical applicability limits
somewhere.

Hopefully the new dependencies do not have to be built in turn for some
Linux distros and Windows (or add new secondary dependencies). How widely
available are they?

Philip




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