custom-symbolic icons for places in nautilus

Question

I know it is possible to set custom-icons for folders with using

gvfs-set-attribute /home/folder metadata::custom-icon-name folder-whatever

but nautilus uses symbolic icons standard::symbolic-icon(?) in the sidebar-tree.

Is it possible to set custom symbolic icons as well using gvfs-set-attribute (or any other method)?

Answer 1

Probably not, as it results in this error:

 Error setting attribute: Setting attribute standard::symbolic-icon not supported

You can list the writeable attributes of a folder/file (e.g. $HOME, the users's home directory) by running:

 gvfs-info -w $HOME

for this I get:

Settable attributes:
 standard::symlink-target (bytestring)
 time::access (uint64, Keep with file when moved)
 time::access-usec (uint32, Keep with file when moved)
 time::modified (uint64, Copy with file, Keep with file when moved)
 time::modified-usec (uint32, Copy with file, Keep with file when moved)
 unix::gid (uint32, Keep with file when moved)
 unix::mode (uint32, Copy with file, Keep with file when moved)
 unix::uid (uint32, Keep with file when moved)
Writable attribute namespaces:
 metadata (string, Copy with file, Keep with file when moved)
 xattr (string, Copy with file, Keep with file when moved)
 xattr-sys (string, Keep with file when moved)

For the standard folder icon, this is set by metadata::custom-icon (or whatever), which comes under the metadata name-space. Any other attributes that aren't listed are not writeable - including standard::symbolic-icon. N.B. creating metadata::symbolic-icon or similar and restarting nautilus seems to have no effect either

Sources/More info

• man gvfs-info
• GFileAttribute _{may be helpful - linked from man page}