Provide a list of deduped and nicely named codicons for use in product

[Tyriar]

The terminal has a feature to change the tab/profile icon which opens this:

It's very convenient to use but it would be nicer if it was instead:

➕ Add - add
💡 Lightbulb - lightbulb
etc.

The - text above would be the greyed out backing id.

User profiles could also use this as @sandy081 has explored.

[isidorn]

Also would it be possible to add the list of icons of the most common languages to our Codicons?
I know @chrisdias wanted to use a Python icon for his "Python 101" profile. And I think that makes sense.

[aeschli]

While the Codicons offers a quick way to get a nice selection of icons, I think not all of the ids are useful and well chosen.
What about having a curated list of the ones that are meaningful in the context of terminal/user profile?
That allows you to add descriptions as well.

If you want to allow that extensions can contribute new icons, use the iconRegistry (IIconRegistry) instead. Have a name convention for your icons so you can also pick up contributed icons.

`registerIcon('terminal-viewicon-cloud', Codicon.cloud, 'Cloud') ...

[daviddossett]

It may also be nice to allow for emojis as well. Although I think at one point this was possible?

[Tyriar]

@daviddossett emoji can be used where text is used, I dislike when extensions do this though as they're the only non-monochrome icons in the UI and stand out like a sore thumb. For example: microsoft/live-share#4185

[sandy081]

This is done by @hbons here - #188972

Hence closing this.

[Tyriar]

This should be closed when it's compatible with the terminal (no debian, ubuntu, etc.?) and it's adopted in the terminal icon picker.

[hbons]

@Tyriar can you automate this? Most look like they make sense with some string transformation. Then we can override the ones that don't make sense.

[Tyriar]

At least at the Codicon level there isn't a marked primary id:

vscode/src/vs/base/common/codicons.ts

Lines 46 to 49 in dfc3625

	add: register('add', 0xea60),
	plus: register('plus', 0xea60),
	gistNew: register('gist-new', 0xea60),
	repoCreate: register('repo-create', 0xea60),

@aeschli is this something we do with theme icons somewhere or is it new territory to get a well formed list of icons to present to the user?

[aeschli]

We have all that already. Use the image registry to register a set of icons suited for terminals view.

registerIcon('terminal-viewicon-cloud', Codicon.cloud, 'Cloud') ...

Reference to the codicon to use as default icon. You can register as many as you want and give them a nice description.

• use a convention on the icon id, e.g start with terminal-viewicon. Extensions that contribute icons can also use that prefix so they show up in your icon picker.
• It's a big list but now it's deduped, curated, and you have description that describe the icon and not the operation
• This allows theme authors to individually design icons for each component. E.g some theme could decide to give all terminal icons a certain look.
• I don't think any migration is needed, existing views that used a codicon name can continue to do so, just your picker now only shows icons from the curated list (maybe plus the old codicon)

@sandy081 I suggest the same for profiles

[Tyriar]

I used iconRegistry.getIcons() but the list wasn't deduped as expected:

		const iconRegistry = getIconRegistry();
		for (const icon of iconRegistry.getIcons()) {
			items.push({ label: `$(${icon.id}) ${icon.id}`, description: icon.description, icon });
		}

Gave:

Proof description is working: