We have a problem where we end up with monochrome and color versions of icons being used inconsistently. This problem exists in our own system settings, our own application settings, our own desktop shell and 3rd party applications.
To solve this problem, we need a way to specify whether we are using a monochrome or color version of an icon. GNOME handles this by putting `*-symbolic` in the names of monochrome versions. I propose we solve it in a similar way. However, instead of having just one `symbolic` directory for monochrome icons at 16px, we need to make multiple symbolic icon directories because we use multiple sizes for monochrome icons.
We can't make a clean switch because many KDE applications will need to be changed to use `*-symbolic` where we want to use monochrome icons. What we can do to ease the transition is to make symlinks from icons in the symbolic directories to their old locations and file names.
For example,I think the best solution might be to create a specialized icon loader function for getting icons from directories marked as Scalable. this is howThen we can use that loader in the `few places/` directory should be done: where it is necessary.
```
places
├── 16 #contains symlinks to symbolic icons without `*-symbolic` in the symlink names
├── 22 #contains symlinks to symbolic icons without `*-symbolic` in the symlink names
├── 32
├── 64
├── symbolic-16
├── symbolic-16@2x
├── symbolic-22
└── symbolic-22@2x
```[[ https://api.kde.org/frameworks/kiconthemes/html/classKIconLoader.html#af49b50de774a495fc7ef3d107db4df00 | We already have a way to classify icons as Scalable ]] and the [[ https://cgit.kde.org/breeze-icons.git/tree/autotests/scalabletest.cpp | scalable test for breeze-icons ]] already uses it, so I don't think it's impossible.
Once we have finished the transition, we can remove the original directories that contained the monochrome icons (i.e., `16/`, `22/`, `24/`).All Scalable icons for icons in the Applications context are color and are supposed to be only color, We can also choose to keep them and use them for simplified color versions of icons at small sizes wherever that may be necessaryso this can work.