Bug 504081

Summary: SySe sidebar icons need to come from the same folder
Product: [Applications] systemsettings Reporter: Andres Betts <anditosan1000>
Component: sidebarviewAssignee: Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status: RESOLVED DOWNSTREAM    
Severity: normal CC: nate, notmart
Priority: NOR    
Version First Reported In: unspecified   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Other   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Andres Betts 2025-05-12 00:56:08 UTC
Given recent changes, it's apparent that the system settings sidebar is using icons from different folders that might not be so appropriate for the location. They are shrinking 64px icons to 22px and it's noticeable when you change icon packs.

Please change the following sidebar items to the following icons from the 22px collection:

- Mouse & Touchpad > input-mouse
- KDE Wallet > wallet-closed
- About this System > dialog-information
- Users > system-users
- User Feedback > dialog-messages

Thank you
Comment 1 Nate Graham 2025-05-13 18:47:14 UTC
These KCMs currently use semantically sensible icon names. If the result looks bad when loading a non-default icon theme, then that icon theme needs to be changed accordingly.
Comment 2 Andres Betts 2025-05-13 19:42:24 UTC
Can you give me a specific example of the change you're suggesting? I want to see where the work belongs.
Comment 3 Nate Graham 2025-05-13 19:49:02 UTC
I'm not suggesting any specific changes. I'm saying that if you get weird icon results when using a non-Breeze icon theme, it's an issue in your non-Breeze icon theme that you need to debug. :)
Comment 4 Andres Betts 2025-05-13 21:38:38 UTC
What I have here is that the Ocean icon collection contains the same placement and names for icons as the breeze collection. When I export icons, I place them in the same location as they appear in the breeze icon pack today.

Additionally, while troubleshooting this issue, I placed equivalent icons in the 32px collection, assuming that the system might not be finding the icon in the right location and fallback kicked in. However, that's not the case. I placed colorful icons in the 64 collection and the same name icons in the 32px collection and 24px collection, none of them were replaced by the changes.

This led me to believe that the sidebar is calling these icons from the 64px collection in a hard-coded way possibly. Would anyone be able to tell me what the syse code sidebar is looking to do for those categories?
Comment 5 Nate Graham 2025-05-13 21:44:18 UTC
> This led me to believe that the sidebar is calling these icons from the 64px collection in a
> hard-coded way possibly.
It's not; it does the completely standard thing of using Kirigami.Icon to ask for an icon with X name at Y size.

How those inputs determine the icon that appears in the UI is up to the icon loader and the icon theme. If the correct icon appears with the Breeze icon theme, then the icon loader is fine, which means there's an issue with your icon theme.

Making the KCMs use different icon names isn't an appropriate workaround to the issues with your icon theme; please don't re-open this.
Comment 6 Nate Graham 2025-05-13 22:54:34 UTC
We investigated this in the Breeze room and I discovered it's a bit more complicated than that. First of all, here are the icon names being used by the KCMs in question:

- Mouse & touchpad: preferences-desktop-mouse (preferences, 32px, medium)
- KDE Wallet: kwalletmanager (apps, 48px, large)
- About This System: ktip (apps, 48px, large)
- Users: preferences-system-users (preferences, 32px, medium)
- User Feedback: preferences-desktop-feedback (preferences, 32px, medium)

The ones whose icon names begin with "preferences-" are using semantically correct icon names that must not be changed. If the visual effect produced is incorrect, it's a problem in the icon theme.

Breeze has 32px versions of these icons, but they're being displayed at 22px size in the sidebar there. An improvement here is if the icon theme had 22px versions of them so they didn't have to get re-sized. In Breeze Icons, that's tracked with Bug 458055.

For KDE Wallet and About This System, they're using app icons, which only come in 48px. So a similar resizing happens there.

For these, the ideal solution is for new icons named "preferences-[something]" to be created, and then after they exist, the KCMs would ask for those new icons by name.

The fact that these issues produce dramatically wrong results is still a problem in the icon theme — even if it's just the Breeze icon theme with new icons pasted over them. Since the new icons have different appearances (e.g. more are monochrome), I'm not surprised that the results are weird.

The solutions are as I mentioned:
- The icon theme needs 22px monochrome versions of all the preferences icons.
- The icon theme needs new 22px monochrome preferences icons for KWallet and About This System, and then the KCMs can use those new icons afterwards.
Comment 7 Andres Betts 2025-05-16 19:03:56 UTC
We can close this ticket. The changes were done at the graphic layer already under the Ocean icon theme.