16.2.3.1 How to handle icons in Desktop Entry files
Icons are generally locale dependent, for the following reasons:
- Icons may contain signs that are considered rude in some cultures. For
example, the high-five sign, in some cultures, is perceived as an
unfriendly “stop” sign.
- Icons may contain metaphors that are culture specific. For example, a
mailbox in the U.S. looks different than mailboxes all around the world.
- Icons may need to be mirrored for right-to-left locales.
- Icons may contain text strings (a bad practice, but anyway).
However, icons are not covered by GNU gettext localization, because
- Icons cannot be easily embedded in PO files,
- The need to localize an icon is rare, and the ability to do so in a PO
file would introduce translator mistakes.
Desktop Entry files may contain an ‘Icon’ property, and this
property is localizable. If a translator wishes to localize an icon,
she should do so by bypassing the normal workflow with PO files:
- The translator contacts the package developers directly, sending them
the icon appropriate for her locale, with a request to change the
template file.
- The package developers add the icon file to their repository, and a
line
Icon[locale]=icon_file_name
to the template file.
This line remains in place when this template file is merged with the
translators’ PO files, through msgfmt.