Next: Gravatars, Previous: Smileys, Up: Image Enhancements [Contents][Index]

#### 9.14.4 Picons

So… You want to slow down your news reader even more! This is a good way to do so. It’s also a great way to impress people staring over your shoulder as you read news.

What are Picons? To quote directly from the Picons Web site:

> Picons is short for “personal icons”. They’re small, constrained images used to represent users and domains on the net, organized into databases so that the appropriate image for a given e-mail address can be found. Besides users and domains, there are picon databases for Usenet newsgroups and weather forecasts. The picons are in either monochrome `XBM` format or color `XPM` and `GIF` formats.

For instructions on obtaining and installing the picons databases, point your Web browser at http://www.cs.indiana.edu/picons/ftp/index.html.

If you are using Debian GNU/Linux, saying ‘`apt-get install picons.*`’ will install the picons where Gnus can find them.

To enable displaying picons, simply make sure that `gnus-picon-databases` points to the directory containing the Picons databases.

The variable `gnus-picon-style` controls how picons are displayed. If `inline`, the textual representation is replaced. If `right`, picons are added right to the textual representation.

The value of the variable `gnus-picon-properties` is a list of properties applied to picons.

The following variables offer control over where things are located.

`gnus-picon-databases`

  The location of the picons database. This is a list of directories containing the `news`, `domains`, `users` (and so on) subdirectories. Defaults to `("/usr/lib/picon" "/usr/local/faces")`.

`gnus-picon-news-directories`

  List of subdirectories to search in `gnus-picon-databases` for newsgroups faces. `("news")` is the default.

`gnus-picon-user-directories`

  List of subdirectories to search in `gnus-picon-databases` for user faces. `("users" "usenix" "local" "misc")` is the default.

`gnus-picon-domain-directories`

  List of subdirectories to search in `gnus-picon-databases` for domain name faces. Defaults to `("domains")`. Some people may want to add ‘`"unknown"`’ to this list.

`gnus-picon-file-types`

  Ordered list of suffixes on picon file names to try. Defaults to `("xpm" "gif" "xbm")` minus those not built-in your Emacs.

`gnus-picon-inhibit-top-level-domains`

  If non-`nil` (which is the default), don’t display picons for things like ‘`.net`’ and ‘`.de`’, which aren’t usually very interesting.

Next: Gravatars, Previous: Smileys, Up: Image Enhancements [Contents][Index]