Hey everyone so I’m not sure if I posted this in the right place but I noticed there was a update for the Papirus icon theme and I noticed that Thunar’s icon was changed from the folder icon to the Thunar hammer icon and wanted to suggest/ask if it could be changed back to the folder icon as it now just looks ugly and out of place and would confuse users if their file manager icon changed from the known file manager icon to the Thunar hammer icon. It would keep the icon theme more consistent and just over all look better.
You can change the icon for thunar by right clicking on the starter in the panel or menu and going into settings or properties.
3 Likes
Agree, but that should be taken to Papirus icon theme developers. See another discussion here:
and here
2 Likes
Is this really because of Papirus or an update to XFCE4 ? I don’t use Papirus and even my File manager icon was changed to the hammer. To change this I had to edit the Thunar .desktop file in /usr/share/applications/ and change the icon line from org.xfce.thunar to thunar, and everything looks Marvelous.
So, was the Icon= line in the .desktop file always pointing to org.xfce.thunar, or is that what XFCE is doing after an update (which seemed to be the case for me) ?
If the issue was with Papirus, it wouldn’t affect stuff like Qogir or WhiteSur icon themes, would it?
1 Like
That’s not recommended as it will be overwritten the next time there’s a Thunar update. Instead, copy the desktop file to ~/.local/share/applications/ and edit it there.
5 Likes
Ah, yes. That has already happened before and I still didn’t do that. Thanks for pointing it out.
I made a request on the Github repo but I don’t think the dev got what I mean’t and tried closing it 
Well, they are right though.
Thunar’s Icon is in their gitlab.
I think the Papirus theme is keeping pretty close to it.
1 Like
True they can but wouldn’t you agree for the sake of consistency and better theme UI design with icons it would look way better if file managers used the generic file manager or folder icons instead of the hammer for Thunar for example that looks out of place and ugly on next to all your other application compared to how much better the folder looks making it more uniform and nice?
I made this point explaining it better on a reply back on the developers comment.
1 Like
Software projects take pride in the icons and symbolism they use for their software.
Which is also the reason why the Firefox icon is usually not changed from the fox to a generic WWW icon.
So it would mess up the projects brand, if you change its icons symbolism without them approving it.
So in my opnion, Papirus corrected an issue with this change.
1 Like
I don’t believe it would ruin the image, they already have multiple different folder icons for different stuff for nextcloud, networking, pictures, downloads ect so a specific folder icon for file managers or even thunar would just fit the already designed blue, green, yellow and pink versions of these icons and believe it would be out of place of their design by using Thunars original icon by default even if it is a updated version of it.
But by looking at your changed icon the task bar, a user would not know it was Thunar, because it just looks like a folder, not the Thunar logo.
It could literally be any file manager. So it’s no longer connected to the Thunar brand.
1 Like
if they were using a DE it wouldn’t matter because the default file manager would be tied to the DE so
Xfce4: Thunar
KDE: Dolphin (also uses a folder like icon like most operating systems)
Gnome: gnome file manager (at least fits in the with the theme UI and makes sense and doesn’t look out of place
you get the point, if they saw a folder icon any user would assumes files or file manager
Just replace the icon with this one:
I currently have Thunar in the Whisker Menu Favorites and also on the XFCE panel. They both still point to org.xfce.filemanger.svg (desktop drawer w/folders). When I enter “file manager” into the Whisker Menu search textbox, I see both icons. When I open Thunar, the Title bar icon is a folder and the Help > About is a hammer. Visually I prefer org.xfce.filemanger.svg, but I understand the brand is thunar.svg. But I’m not sure the universal symbol for file management is a hammer 
Gimp’s brand, Wilbur, is at least holding a paintbrush. The firefox fox is at least circling the world wide web. Just for grins, I went to the Internet archive and the oldest page they had for Thunar was 2012 and the icon was a hammer.
I’d just edit the desktop file in my home directory and change the icon to org.xfce.filemanger.svg, as shown by @anon55802073.
Gosh, that was hideous. They need someone to help them with their marketing image.
I had to get rid of it, Menu > ugly Thunar > rightclick > Edit application… > ugly Icon > system-file-manager > Ok
And that’s pretty much it.
Some Linux file managers use a filing cabinet icon instead of a folder icon, so there is no consensus even within Linux
Xfce has a filing cabinet icon launcher
and a Thunar icon launcher - /usr/share/applications/thunar.desktop
(as already stated in post #2 - You can edit launchers to use another icon)
and an optional Home folder icon for the desktop in xfce4-destop-settings
IMO your bug report gave the project a good reason not to change
that is what every OS and other icon themes on Linux use
Argumentum ad populum - Wikipedia
One who commits this fallacy may assume that individuals commonly analyze and edit their beliefs and behaviors based on majority opinion. This is often not the case.
2 Likes