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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    RfC: SERIOUS TOPIC *PLEASE READ!* Dropping current LOCOLOR-icons!
From:       Simon Hausmann <tronical () gmx ! net>
Date:       1999-07-30 23:23:16
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Torsten asked me (on irc) to fwd to kde-core-devel since he's not
subscribed, yet. (thus putting him in the cc list, so that he gets replies
aswell)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 00:45:17 +0200
From: Torsten Rahn <rahn@astrophysik.uni-kiel.de>
To: tronical@gmx.net
Subject: RfC: SERIOUS TOPIC *PLEASE READ!* Dropping current LOCOLOR-icons!

I found out that quite a lot of persons still donīt know about my 
decision to drop the current 32x32 - 40-color-icons from our 
standard-packages. Please donīt blame me. I tried to inform everyone
as you can see at the bottom of this mail ... I donīt feel guilty if
developers donīt even read release-informations that were posted 
on kde-core-devel (I feel rather discouraged).

To keep it short. This was what I intended for the next KDE-release:

three iconsizes:

- small 16x16 -- 40 colors
- normal 32x32 -- HiColor
- large 48x48 -- HiColor

In addition we are planning to provide an additional set of 
40-color-icons that would have to be downloaded *optionally*.
That would mean that all 32x32-pixel-icons that are currently part
of the CVS-tree would be removed (I already did this for 
kdegraphics) from the curent modules!

O.k. as I found out quite a lot of developers seem still not to know 
about this so I encourage you to discuss this topic

If this discussion would result in a different decision that would 
probably result in a delayed release-date. But good software is
more important of course than release-aims.


Here are some facts / problems that you should be aware of: 
==========================================================

- kde 1.1.2 was announced as a first step to beautify the desktop
  If we would stay with 40-color-32x32-icons, only people who would 
  like / can afford large icons would see most of the beautifying 
  effect. As KDE would have normal Icons by default noone would
  see the difference to KDE 1.1.1 at all .. as long as you donīt 
  *search* the switch to activate those large icons  .... 

- If we would use High-color-icons they would be dithered on 8-bit
  graphics-adapters.

- 8-bit graphics-adapters are used on quite a lot of Sparc-stations 
  yet. Many of us use them as many us work at university. But is 
  that representative for our userbase? How much percent
  do still use 8-bit graphics-adapters? Is it important 
  that you wouldnīt enjoy best quality there if we would ship 
  using HiColor-Icons only? Do you actually need best quality
  if you work in front of a computer with 8bpp?

This would result in the simple question: Which users do we care
more about:

a) 8bpp-users who would be annoyed by dithering of HiColor-icons

or

b) PC-users who are annoyed by 40-color-icons as most of them 
   own current graphics-adapters and want to make use of them.

technical problems:

- The 40-color-set would have to be repainted partly due to 
  changes in the new HiColor-Set. (That will take some time ...)

- If you would want to provide all icons at once -- well how 
  would you like to switch: we have:
  
  16x16 Locolor
  32x32 Locolor
  32x32 HiColor
  48x48 HiColor

  There wonīt be any other sizes/color-depths in addition.
  No chance ...

  So between what options would you like to switch? How can
  we tell the user easily about choices?
  This could also mean that you would have to extend the current
  directory-tree ...

- file-size increases. The size of every additional iconsset
  has also to be considered as we still use xpm (which is quite
  huge after being untarred.) We should use PNG for KDE2!

- Do we still want to support 40-color-icons for KDE2? Would it make
  sense to implement something complicated now to drop it for KDE2?
  Will KDE2 still run on computers that support 8-bit-adapters only?

 
I have posted my thoughts about this topic quite a lot of times.
and those postings underneath have been partly mirrored on 
quite a lot of different news-pages (linuxtoday, lwn, kde-news).
So donīt blame me if you think that I havenīt tried to tell you
anything about this topic earlier ...

http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~navindra/kde-devel/kwn-10/kwn-10.html

http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~navindra/kde-devel/kwn-3/kwn-3.html

http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-cvs&m=93171029628962&w=2

http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-devel&m=93325132614111&w=2

http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=93265414720996&w=2

http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-devel&m=93085984305446&w=2

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