Where is the reference to the currently used icon theme stored?

A reference to the current icon theme can be found in gconf-editor at:

desktop > gnome > interface > icon_theme

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You can alternatively read directly ~/.gconf/desktop/gnome/interface$ cat %gconf.xml file.

Unfortunately, this does not provide a path to the relevant icon theme. I'll check how this setting relates to the path and i'll let you know ;-)

Have a look at PyXDG (package python-xdg in Ubuntu). xdg.IconTheme.getIconPath(iconname) gets you the path to the give icon.

This looks too easy, so I'm probably missing something here... but what about:

icon = QIcon.fromTheme("firefox")

QT is supposed to take care of this itself.

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