This utility, called “Icon theme configurator”, will allow the user to create its own icon sets, in order to customize the appearance of his own gvSIG Desktop, (for more information, check out the previous post about the new set of icons available in gvSIG 2.4).

These new tools will also allow the user to create a package with the icon theme created, so it is possible to share it and install it through the “Add-on Manager”.

What is an icon set?

gvSIG Desktop has internally an icon set which includes all the images that are used in the program interface such as the menu and button icons, cursors, document icons, TOC layer icons…

In addition to the default icon set that we have been using in gvSIG since some previous versions already, gvSIG is able to load other kind of icon sets. In this post we will show you how to do it.

The “Icon theme configurator” plugin can be installed from the ‘Add-on Manager’, as shown in the following video:

This functionality will allow the user:

• To view the variety of icons that has already installed.
• To apply as default a set of icons to the gvSIG Desktop interface.
• To create a new set of icons.
• To create packages with sets of icons.

How to work with the ‘Icon theme configurator’?

When installed, the ‘Icon theme configurator’ tool cannot be reachable through the toolbar of gvSIG or through the menus. The start must be done through the “script launcher” or directly from the “script editor”.
In this example we will open the “Icon theme configurator” through the “script launcher”:

Then, we select the “iconThemeConfigurator” script by clicking on it twice, as it is shown in the image:

And the following window will pop up:

Firstly, in the “View” tab, it will appear the list of icon sets that we have already installed. By selecting the icons it is possible to preview them, to see their name and the group they belong to.

Secondly, in the “Select” tab, we will see the full list of icon sets installed in gvSIG. We must select one set as default. This step can also be done from the “Preferences” side of the application, in the section “General / Icon Set”.

Then, in the “Create” tab we can export a folder located in “gvSIG / icon-theme” the internal gvSIG Desktop icon set. We must indicate a code, name, author and description. The most relevant fields are the code (which will be the name of the folder that will be created in the route gvSIG / icon-theme”) and name”. It is recommended that the code does not contain spaces or special characters (letters, numbers and hyphens only).

Once the theme is created, and the name and location of the file appear in subfolders, then it is possible to replace the “internal” icons with the new ones we have previously created, keeping the name and location.

In the following video the whole procedure is shown step by step:

When the replacing of the original icons with the new ones is done, the next step would be to create a package. The user will be able to share and install the Package from the “Add-on Manager”. This task can be performed on the “Package” tab:

First we will have to select the folder of our game of icons. Click “Next” and fill in the metadata of the package. It is important to fill in the fields that appear in red, as this information is the one that will be displayed in the “Add-on Manager”, when a user is going to install the plugin containing an icon set.

Press “Next” again and it will show the route and name of the package that will be created; By default it is saved in the “Install” folder located in the following route “gvSIG-desktop / gvSIG-desktop-2.4.0”. Then the user will have the package ready to work with.

Finally, in this video it is shown the process of creating a package from an icon set:

Following this procedure a game icons will be created in a format of 16 × 16 and 22 × 22 pixels, as presented in an earlier post of the gvSIG blog.

To sum up, in this article of the blog we have shown you the very simple steps needed to change an icon set in gvSIG from version 2.4 – on. We only have to redesign the game of icons that we want to apply to our favorite GIS.