I feel like I am asking too many questions here but that is how we learn.

I have several projects and have noticed 2 things that I can't seem to make happen.

1..  if I use icons (stock) for buttons then look good and work until I install using the generated RPM on a clean system. program works fine but the icons in the buttons do not appear. If I then install full gambas3 on that system the icons appear in the buttons. I figure this is something I am missing but can't figure out what it is.

2.. I like to have an icon for the program when I install using the generated RPM, but can't see how to make the desktop file show the icon for my program that I want other than manual edit. Anybody help on that too?

I feel like I am asking too many questions here but that is how we learn.

Keep asking, that's what this forum is for!

If anybody does knows the answer to question 1/. I would also like to know how to do this.

Question 2/.

Put your icon in your program's folder.
Menu Project>Properties… Then click on the Gambas icon and select your image.
<IMG src="http://www.cogier.com/gambas/ProjectProperties.png"> </IMG>

What parts of Gambas is installed on your "clean" system along with your app? You probably need to put the package that has the stock icons in your app's required packages list (I'm not quite sure which one has it).

/howto/package - Gambas Documentation

 What I would like is to be able create a '.deb' or 'RPM' in Gambas and it install it on any Distro. I have tried changing '.deb' files to install a ppa that would solve the problem on 'apt-get' systems, it's all very messy!

I know nothing about 'Snaps' but this looks like a way to solve this problem.

My main concern regarding Gambas is that it is no longer exists in the most important *buntu repositories and therefore will loose any influence. To me this is the greatest concern.

I use fedora so I set it for an RPM in the create package. It installs whatever dependencies are required as the programs run, just does not have the stock imagery. So the answer as to what is installed on the clean system is whatever the default is from the RPM.

thanks for the answer to question number 1. I finally had a chance to test it and it worked perfectly. however still trying to figure out the icons in the buttons. only works with full install of gambas3 not the runtime.