[LAD] [LV2] Feature request: icons

[Sven Jaehnichen]

Hi,

there was a feature request and a short discussion about plugin icons 
this weekend on IRC. And I like the idea.

Many LV2 plugins have their own logos (Helm, Vital, Surge, Drops, 
Wolfshaper, Geonkick, Dragonfly, ...). But they only use these logos 
internally within the plugin. Hosts fully ignore these logos at this 
moment. No surprise, there is no standard. OK, LMMS uses plugin icons. 
But only for their own LMMS-specific factory plugins. In general logos 
may provide a benefit for users to more easily find the plugin the user 
looked for.

My first idea was: you can do everything with an extension. But this 
would be misleading. It would be a technical overkill to provide a whole 
C interface as falkTX responded. And showing an icon would require 
plugin instantiation. Fully incompatible with listing plugins.

The most simple but also misleading way for a host would be to show an 
icon file (.ico?, .xpm?, .png?, .svg?) found in the plugin directory. 
But this would end up in rubbish in many cases. Think about textures or 
dial images which are often stored in the plugin directory.

It would be nice to have a property like lv2:icon <logo.png> or 
something like this. But what about to provide an icon in different 
sizes / resolutions? Any ideas? Any (other) solutions?

And don't forget. It only makes sense if the hosts will provide this 
feature. Host developers, what do you think about it?

Regards,
Sven