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List:       kde-artists
Subject:    Re: KDE icons stuff
From:       Torsten Rahn <rahn () astrophysik ! uni-kiel ! de>
Date:       1999-08-09 22:44:08
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Samo Korosec wrote:
> 
> Hi again,
> 
> after much of the 'KDE artists' stuff is about icons, as if icons are the
> only way of doing art for a DE, I have some ideas. Torsten don't give up on
> me yet ;o)

Itīs all about icons because it makes sense to focus on icons now: we
have 
to complete a set soon (to avoid to make it a neverending story ...) :-)
If you want to work on something else -- feel free to do so.

> 1) KDE could use a fixed palette of 4 [or more] colors for icon gradient
> colors [representing the main part of the icon - being a file, folder, app
> or whatever]. I the theme's main color is blue, the gradient adapts to a
> given palette of 4 blue colors wich the artist can define in a text file. So
> an icon for C++ source file would be a sheet of paper using the gradients
> and a C++ sign on to of it. If the theme changes to yellow, the paper would
> use yellow gradients, if the theme turns green, the sheet would show up
> green.
> Now this idea is somewhat more complex to code [although by no means
> impossible], yet it gives the icons more power to adapt to different themes,
> thus making the whole look of the desktop more appealing.

I like this idea very much but I think itīs too complex for people
who would want to just create a simple mimetype-icon. People who are no
artists at all donīt even know what a fixed palette is. So most of them 
wouldnīt be able to create such an icon.
Besides that you would probably also need a new file-format. -- But KDE
should 
be based on common standards.

> 2) More simple to implement and yet as powerful would be icon layering. This
> technique basicaly uses two types of icons - the theme icons and the KDE
> default icons. The artist creating a theme would require to provide some
> basic icon templates with his theme. This templates [standard file, source,
> compressed, executable, folder, etc] would be used when actually drawing the
> icons as the background and the KDE defaul icons would be drawn on top of
> them. So KDE would include the top-icons for C, C++, Java, Pascal files and
> the artist would make the templates for placing underneath, in this case the
> template for source files.

Nice idea but also quite complex -- what would you do with shadows?
 
> Also interesting would be to have OnMouseOver [maybe a 2 pixel wide border
> around the icon to highlight it, in the theme or a gradient color] and
> OnMouseClick [maybe the icon brightening or something] effects for the
> icons, which would let the artist be much more creative or, if not more,

:-) Be honest: one of your previous computers was an amiga -> glow-icons
....

> would help with the round border/pastel colors dillema. Plus KDE would have
> a active desktop.... >o)

animated icons, he? I have considered them for KDE 2.0. But like all of
this 
stuff above we must be careful: KDE should still give a serious
impression. 
KDEīs main-aim isnīt to provide a desktop as a toy to play with ...
We arenīt the only people who can decide this -- we should ask the 
developers what they think about these ideas. IMO too many ītoyfeaturesī
could 
discredit KDE.

Torsten
 
> my 0.02 cents.
> 
> hant,
> xype|samo korosec

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