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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Low-Color icons (long version of answer)
From:       Torsten Rahn <rahn () astrophysik ! uni-kiel ! de>
Date:       1999-07-31 11:04:53
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Hi Cristian,

> HI Torsten
> 
> First and foremost, I would like to assure you of *all* my respect for
> your excellent work on the artistic side of KDE, as well as for your
> determination to build a better aesthetic reputation for our project.

There are quite a lot of people who deserve this
respect concerning their work:

Jon Abbott
Gernot Bauer
Jeff Browning
Andre M. Czausov
Robert Flemming
Rik Hemsley
Laur Ivan
Olof & Karin Kylander 
Paul Rahme
Torsten Rahn
Carlos Rego
Oliver Schrempf
Stefan Spatz
Szymon Stefanek
Eero Tamminen
Ante Wessels
David Willis

> This is especially valid when highly surprizing topics come to hand (like
> anihilating 2 years of work on KDE icons).

Annhilating 2 years work?
If you kept an eye on the new icons you will see that they are based 
very VERY much on the old set -- some of them are even that similar that 
itīs even possible to mix them up. This way we *preserved* the work of 
the people who made this nice set of 40-color-icons. 
Donīt forget that I put quite a lot of work into the old icon-set,
too... 
So I do still care about them.
 
> > To keep it short. This was what I intended for the next KDE-release:
> > In addition we are planning to provide an additional set of
> > 40-color-icons that would have to be downloaded *optionally*. 
> We? Who we? I surely didn't see a majority agreement on this. I mean,
> there was no discussion on the "optionanlly" part.

I had talked to quite a lot of people within the recent time -especially 
on LinuxTag. From these talks I got the impression that only very very
few
people think that 40-color-icons are necessarily to be shipped with the 
standard-packages.

> > 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!
> Removed? Why? Who gives anyone of us the right to remove things from the
> CVS without good reason? What's the good reason? Yes, we decided we'll
> provide hicolor icons. But there was no decision to remove the lowcolor
> icons.

O.k. Donīt call it removing but replacing -- you do this actually every 
day. You replace old versions of code thereby removing inferior old
code.
You even rewrite complete applications. You will probably do this using
the 
ideas & code of the old version. I think this is not that far apart
from what was done in this case.

> > 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. 
> The delay could result only from the fact that the things weren't dealt in
> the usual manner. And the cause is a possible misunderstanding of yours
> about what team work means.

If we would have done it the usual way we would have evolved *much*
slower.

> > - If we would use High-color-icons they would be dithered on 8-bit
> >   graphics-adapters. 
> It seems you're not aware of some technical facts. Use of 40-color icons
> was imposed by the fact that initial use of hicolor icons was sucking up
> completely the color palette on 8 bpp machines. This resulted in extremely
> ugly palette focus switching and hence almost unusably ugly desktops. It's
> not about dithering, it's about usability (or lack thereof). We now have
> dithering in kpixmap, but problems still occur.

I am and have been aware of this fact. And together with Marc Donohoe 
I have made sure that the old iconset consists of 40-color-icons only
for 
quite a long time.
BTW: icons werenīt dithered back in that time when this decision was
made IIRC.

> These questions are irrelevant. We all agreed to ship KDE with hicolor
> icons. But there is no viable reason to alienate users of older hardware

currently we are alienating people with advanced hardware the same way
as
people would be alienated by dithered icons.
So providing an additional set of locolor icons for download would be a
step 
forward IMO.
But if we could find a better way to include the current icons I would 
vote for that one of course.
The best idea I heard so far was to make something like

./configure --locoloricons

> (and there are many of them than we're ready to accept). *Adding*
> hicolor graphics to KDE is very benefic. But this *doesn't imply* removing
> lowcolor graphics from KDE. On the opposite, removing lowcolor graphics
> harm both unpriviledged users *and* KDE project. You weren't around to
> testimony the storm triggered by initial hicolor icon use in KDE.

I was! (How can you tell me that I werenīt?). But we have almost 2000
now
and not 1997 -- things do evolve fast. Graphics adapters that cost
once (in 1997) hundreds of dollars cost a few dollars now!
Additional reason: Another popular project ships only one set of icons
(48x48 HiColor) which is resized, dithered etc. just according to the
users needs. There is even a distribution that ships this environment
by default.
 
> > - The 40-color-set would have to be repainted partly due to
> >   changes in the new HiColor-Set. (That will take some time ...) 
> ? Why the old can't be used? The did quite well for so long time. KDE
> was never considered ugly because of its icons. On the contrary.

Because of consistency! O.k., we can also use two different looking 
widget-sets at the same time. But this will confuse users (like the
pre-KDE-area did).

> > - 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 ... 
> OK, I think every body agrees on this. But by your actions you decided
> (all alone, and in our names of all of us) that 32x32 Low-color icons are
> gone.

After quite a lot of posting actually nobody seemed to take care. Even 
after clearly stating that LoColor-icons wonīt be supported anymore 
I got only two responses (from thousands of people listening as it was
posted
on lwn and linuxtoday and www.kde.org). 
No developer answered at all. Someone has to fail decisions. When there
seems 
to be no interest at all it is obvious that the topic is not important.
Questions that are unimportant can usually be decided by the maintainer.
(The one who does most of the work has the greatest experience and
pushes the 
work).

> > 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 ...
> OK. I apologize about this. It's true I overlooked your messages. Anyways,
> be sure that if I was aware of your lonely decisions, I was trying to
> contact you (and trigger discussion) immediatly. BTW, only one of these
> messages clearly states your lonely decision to remove 40-color icons.

Sorry if I donīt tell everything twice.

I will do so from now on.
I will do so from now on.

> IN CONCLUSION:
> 
> Hi-color icons (and graphics) will be the default set of KDE-1.2 and
> KDE-2.X.
> 
> Nobody forces us to drop 40-color icons. We just need to find a good
> filesystem standard solution.

Good. But be aware of the fact that people wonīt be very encouraged
to draw 40-color-icons (that means that there probably wonīt be any
further
work on the old icon-set). Most people will want to draw HiColor-icons
only
if they are supported. Thatīs why I was against 32x32-HiColor-Icons for
a 
long time. The existence of HiColor-32x32-icons would stop any further
work on 40color-icons immediately (especially if 32x32-HiColor-icons are
displayed by default and look much better -- why should one want to draw 
locolor then?.).
Thatīs why it wouldnīt make much sense to introduce something completely
new for KDE 1.x just to drop it for KDE 2.
 
> When doing major changes to KDE, be sure that people are aware of what
> happens.

I canīt do anything if nobody cares about being told something. I canīt
force
people to read my messages. I canīt force people to read anything nor do
I 
want.
 
> I personally am glad this discussion happened now. This way we avoid the
> disaster of a release dubbed stable and being really of alpha quality. And

Me, too. Iīve got the impression that too few people test the 1.x
release
right now. The only way to encourage them is to commit the new icons as 
soon as possible. To prevent developers from not testing the 1.x tree
I would ask you not to commit the new icons to the HEAD-tree unless
the new 1.x is finished. This is also the reason why I didnīt upload any 
tar-packages with icons recently. We encourage people to test these
snapshots by providing the icons in those snapshots only.

Greetings,

Torsten Rahn

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