# Arbitrary icons, Gramps and Gtk Inspector

**URL:** <https://gramps.discourse.group/t/arbitrary-icons-gramps-and-gtk-inspector/9854>\
**Category:** Development\
**Tags:** gui\
**Created:** [August 16, 2026, 12:43am UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/arbitrary-icons-gramps-and-gtk-inspector/9854 "2026-08-16T00:43:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![emyoulation](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/gramps.discourse.group/emyoulation/32/67_2.png) [@emyoulation](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/emyoulation)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2026, 12:43am UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/arbitrary-icons-gramps-and-gtk-inspector/9854/1 "2026-08-16T00:43:03Z")

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Why does Gramps show B&W fallback icons when the color ones were specified? And how can it be made more predictable?

When documenting the interface, it is important to know whether to illustrate with the selected icon or the fallback. And whether it will be consistent across all the OSes.

The People category toolbar buttons (color and symbolic):

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/gramps/original/2X/7/72560e4d32a490293bcf93b013e77ac86c46205c.png)

## A more subtle example:

The hamburger icons that indicate that 2ndry objects exists have 4 stacked lines in the Linux Gnome GUI. (That icon is `format-justify-fill-symbolic`)

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/gramps/original/2X/8/816ccd687dc520cf91481dcc59c32a209c4639c4.png)

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/gramps/original/2X/1/15e8aedc70b7b8da79b8ea03936a10ebdcc6926d.png) ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/gramps/original/2X/6/61fbb02f870dc9091eb23c83daf6a9830cda2731.png)

The [**Gtk Inspector**](https://developer.gnome.org/documentation/tools/inspector.html) says that the `format-justify-fill` (3 lines) was specified.

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/gramps/original/2X/a/a2b4ee37815fbaf9b0ed90a0d93b8759c3c3cb17.png)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DaveSch](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/gramps.discourse.group/davesch/32/40_2.png) [@DaveSch](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/DaveSch)\
**Post date:** [August 16, 2026, 2:16pm UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/arbitrary-icons-gramps-and-gtk-inspector/9854/2 "2026-08-16T14:16:44Z")

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For the last several versions (back to 5.1 ??) the `share\icons\Adwaita` folder has been paired down with only the `16x16`, `scalable` and `symbolic` folders. Both the `16x16` and `scalable` folders each have limited folders with limited icons and missing any `actions` folders. The `symbolic` folder has more folders including an `actions` folder with a full set of SVG icons.

My installs have always been the AIO Windows versions.

Edited: I saved an older version of the full Adwaita icons folder and drop into new installs (along with some of my own modifications).

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![emyoulation](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/gramps.discourse.group/emyoulation/32/67_2.png) [@emyoulation](https://gramps.discourse.group/u/emyoulation)\
**Post date:** [September 2, 2026, 3:07am UTC](https://gramps.discourse.group/t/arbitrary-icons-gramps-and-gtk-inspector/9854/3 "2026-09-02T03:07:56Z")

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It seems that 2 of the most heavily used icons in the Gramps interface (those ones we use for Edit and Share) were phased out between Gtk2 and Gtk3. Which makes sense since they are so ugly. So those icons are not available for use in larger sizes. … I wonder if the small icons would look less pixelated on a macOS Retina display? (It seems likely that the 16px and 24px `.PNG`s would have to be discarded to gain the shape file benefit.)

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/gramps/original/2X/6/62fa37a959c1f5b0f371659750519162523f4cf3.png)

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/gramps/original/2X/8/8afd020479f1bbe117ad3ea4c3cdd2814a767bdb.png)

After downloading the SVGs from from the archive:

```python
`https://gitlab.zrythm.org/zrythm/gtk/-/blob/6f3c3c34131a664794160e3ae61d2547222dc20e/gtk/stock-icons/24/gtk-index.svg`
`https://gitlab.zrythm.org/zrythm/gtk/-/blob/6f3c3c34131a664794160e3ae61d2547222dc20e/gtk/stock-icons/24/gtk-edit.svg`

```

Inserted those files in the the appropriate spots:

```python
.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/actions/gtk-index.svg
.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/actions/gtk-edit.svg

```

Makes all the resolutions available.

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/gramps/original/2X/a/acd5cf76cd3feb26f946e9723622325053d101cb.png)

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/gramps/original/2X/a/adba1c5a2110c5ed9ba1852a45660e01322dde57.png)