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List:       kde-artists
Subject:    Re: [kde-artists] [RFC] Icons "view" & "view-close"
From:       Jakob Petsovits <jpetso () gmx ! at>
Date:       2008-05-31 23:31:22
Message-ID: 200806010131.22921.jpetso () gmx ! at
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On Saturday, 31. May 2008, James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> pinheiro wrote:
> <SNIP>
>
> > James, couple of things .... we usuly put the x on the side, we dont use
> > the shadow under action any more, and we do special versions for 16, 22,
> > and 48.
>
> I hope that these are OK for "view".  If OK, I can commit them.

If I'm correct, the icons that you attach for "view" are the same ones that 
are currently in use as "view-close". We already have small versions for 
those icons, so there is no need to post them again for "view" as it's the 
same icon.

So Nuno meant that we need small versions for the version with 
additional "X" - the other icon can just simply be moved away 
from "view-close" (or be replaced altogether).

> Perhaps Jakob has something to say about the red "X" for "view-close".

As always, it depends on how the icon is being used. As far as I know, 
view-close is being used primarily as counterpart for view-split-*, that is, 
to close one side of a split view and blow the remaining view up to the full 
window size (slightly simplified).

The problematic thing for the metaphor aspect is that a view in itself is not 
something that can really be drawn... it's just the thing inside the window 
frame. So "split views" can be visualized by adding the splitter inside the 
window that tears the single view apart into two new views. "Close view" 
should be the exact opposite, taking one part of the window away again.

Unfortunately, we cannot simplify this like in dolphin's "close right view" 
and "close left view" icons because split views can be indefinitely nested, 
and an icon saying "close right view" doesn't match an action that actually 
means "close the right part of the lower part of the left view", so we went 
with a generic icon that closes "anything" inside the window frame.

I would agree with JRT that an icon in the corner is not very intuitive for 
the user in this case, because the thing that's closed is actually inside the 
window and not the window itself. So +1 on an "X" inside the window.

However, I talked with Pino Toscano about this icon before the 4.0 release, 
and I remember that he brought up two slightly different use cases which 
cause us to not assume "merge views" as only action for this icon.
I also remember that I had little time and left out this issue in favor of the 
more pressing ones at that time.

In order to solve this issue properly, the most important thing is to know how 
this icon is actually being used by all the applications. JRT, if you wish to 
introduce a new icon such as "view" then we first need to know which 
applications will use it and in which ways. If we don't know that, both names 
and metaphors are just guesses, and those are often wrong.

So before you commit an additional icon to Oxygen, please gather the use cases 
for that icon. I am reluctant to include a new second icon if there is the 
possibility avoid it altogether, and currently we don't have the knowledge 
whether that can be done or not. (I would already have duplicated this icon 
in the 4.0 timeframe if I had had this knowledge then.) If there are just a 
few occurrences, maybe we can rethink those instead of adding new icons.

And of course, plain "view" as icon name is just as bad as plain "zoom" for 
the same reasons... but let's not discuss the naming issue before we haven't 
solved the target audience issue above.

Regards,
  Jakob
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