currently it is possible to define a custom theme and mix this with custom icons PER folder.
This works great, thank you.
What would make it even better would be to select 2 themes.
like the normal theme for which would impact all files in nautilus.
And an alternative light gray / black theme for all the hidden folders / files in nautilus.
That way people can easily always show their hidden files, and easily differentiate them because they do not have the bright color of the theme, but a monochrome alternative color.
alternatively I believe this could also be done with only 1 theme, by putting a different property on the gio attribute standard::icon: inode-directory, folder, inode-directory-symbolic, folder-symbolic.
to something like standard::icon: inode-directory, folder-hidden, inode-directory-symbolic, folder-hidden-symbolic
However this approach limits the user to 1 style of thempack and not the full flexibility.
alternatives are also welcome.
In the end I just want to avoid looping over each and every file with gio and setting the alternative icon when standard::is-hidden: TRUE
Because this is not really maintainable.
As far I understand icons work with the icons attribute of the file (inspectable through gio).
Making the icon distinct through that attribute would work, but would require a lot of work for the theme maintainers, even the default awaita.
Because that would explode the potential pack with every possible combinations. For example an hidden text file currently has the text file icon. Putting a distinct text-hidden icon attribute would work for all themes that implement the icon but I believe it would be easier if a different themes pack could be chosen for hidden files. That way theme builders do not have to maintain the -hidden variants and Nautilus does not have to differentiate on file type. Text is text regardless of it is hidden or not. It would basically switch on the gio is hidden true attribute for theme switching…