Icon libraries
==============

This package is merely a proof of concept for a new way of dealing with icons
within the K Desktop Environment.
As KDE has grown big and complex also the initial loadtime has grown. One of
the main factors is the opening/closing of hundreds of files. Many of these
files are XPM icons and I have tried to make a faster way of loading the standard
icons by keeping them in a shared library.

The subdirectories contains the following:

toolbaricons:
=============

 - mkxpmlib is a shellscript which constructs a kicons.cpp containing includes
   for a number of XPM icons.
 - kicon.h contains some general functions for dynamic loading of icons.
 - libktoolbaricons is created by these files and is a shared library
   containg toolbar icons.

kiconbrowse:
============

 - kiconbrowse is a small utility for viewing the icons in a shared library.
 - knewiconloader.* contains a class KNewIconLoader (derived from KIconLoader)
   which uses both icon libraries and *.xpm files. KNewIconLoader uses dynamic
   loading but the library could simply be linked at compile time.

I'd really like to get some comments on this: Is it a stupid approach, should we
keep icons in compressed files instead or whatever.

NB: In order to be able to use KNewIconLoader loadInternal() in kdecore/kiconloader.h
   needs to be changed to a virtual method and kdecore must be compiled and reinstalled.
   The package must be configured with "./configure --prefix=/path/to/kde" and installed
   to make the programs able to find the icon library.
   Try to drag an icon from kiconbrowse to kiconedit from the CVS :-)

Regards,

    Thomas (tanghus@kde.org)


