As a Roblox developer, it is currently too hard to use explorer icons for plugins, and it is only possible to use explorer icons in ImageLabels and ImageButtons. It is also needlessly complicated to use StudioService:GetClassIcon(). Why should there be a whole separate function for loading what can be a simple image? On top of that, explorer icons can’t be used in live games or in scripts (even in studio) because of GetClassIcon’s PluginSecurity status.
Class icons can’t be used at all in PluginMenus, PluginButtons, etc.
If Roblox is able to address this issue, it would improve my development experience because it would allow me to more easily integrate class icons into my plugins and use them for easier debugging or relevant UI in my games.
I propose a Content Protocol for explorer icons, e.g. icon://. This would solve all of these use cases in one blow, and would allow for a lot more. Similar to rbxthumb://, this could potentially support arguments like the following examples:
icon://index=1 - The explorer icon at index 1
icon://className=Part - The explorer icon for the Part class
icon://className=Part&size=8 - With a custom size
icon://className=Part&iconAsset=id&w=100&h=50 - Load based on a custom asset id for the icon sheet & image size
This could also be useful internally for studio builtins.