gtk-update-icon-cahce, update-mime-database

[Yevgen Muntyan]

Hey,

Sorry for a long post, hope you can read through it.

I am seeking an advice on the following. Gtk applications
which have icons should install them into
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/somesize/somewhere
and then call gtk-update-icon-cache (see below [*]
for a sample of makefile rules). This should be done
on install and uninstall. Similarly, if an application
has files for mime database, it should install those
files into /usr/share/mime/packages/ and then run
update-mime-database, also on install and uninstall.
Stuff like this is fairly hard (unless you find editing
Makefile.am and configure.ac easy), see for instance
this: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=362604

My question is, is it possible to write some nifty
autoconf macros to make this task easy? I would
like to have some GTK_MISC_FILES macro in
configure.ac, which would make me able to put the
following into Makefile.am:

GTK_ICONS = myicon.png

and have all that gtk-update-icon-cache stuff handled
automatically. I can't actually imagine how I would
specify 48x48/apps directory here, though I do know
I want something nice and simple ;)

I can write an autoconf macro which will make me able
to do (in Makefile.am)

GTK_ICONS = myicon.png
GTK_ICONS_DIR = 48x48/apps
@GTK_ICONS_MAGIC_RULE@

That GTK_ICONS_MAGIC_RULE would actually
expand to a make rule (though I am not sure if
I can have two rules in it). But it'd be inconvenient
(at least my experience with intltool macros is
rather terrible), and it would be impossible to have
a rule for mime files in the same Makefile.am (since
they also need install-data-hook target).

So, is it possible to have such a functionality without
changing automake?

Thanks!
Yevgen

[*] Here is a piece of my Makefile.am which installs an icon:

hicolor = $(datadir)/icons/hicolor
iconthemedir = $(hicolor)/48x48/apps
icontheme_DATA = ../moo/mooutils/pixmaps/medit.png

update_icon_cache = gtk-update-icon-cache -f -t $(DESTDIR)$(hicolor)

install-data-hook:
   if echo "Updating icon cache" && $(update_icon_cache); then        \
       echo "Done.";                            \
   else                                    \
       echo "*** GTK icon cache not updated. After install, run this:";\
       echo $(update_icon_cache);                    \
   fi
uninstall-hook:
   echo "Updating icon cache" && $(update_icon_cache) && echo "Done."