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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: [kde-artists] OpenDocument MIME icons
From:       David Vignoni <david () oxygen-icons ! org>
Date:       2007-05-15 18:54:14
Message-ID: 1C780116-9089-4B7F-8E74-4E903CC6F485 () oxygen-icons ! org
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Il giorno 15/mag/07, alle ore 20:43, James Richard Tyrer ha scritto:

> jos poortvliet wrote:
>> Op Tuesday 15 May 2007, schreef James Richard Tyrer:
>>> David Vignoni wrote:
>>>> Il giorno 15/mag/07, alle ore 10:35, James Richard Tyrer ha  
>>>> scritto:
>>>>> Robert Knight wrote:
>>>>>>> I was going to work on this but now I have been insulted by an
>>>>>>> Oxygen developer.  He called my HiColor icons prehistoric.  
>>>>>>> Actually,
>>>>>>> that isn't an insult since they are not supposed to be artsy,  
>>>>>>> they
>>>>>>> are generic.
>>>>>> Are we talking about a mailing list or an IRC conversation?   
>>>>>> Just to
>>>>>> make sure that there are not two separate discussions going on in
>>>>>> different mailing lists about this topic.
>>>> this was not an insult, did I insulted you any way? Don't think  
>>>> I have
>>>> used a bad language against you?
>>>> Your icon was really old style and not compatible with the  
>>>> oxygen icon
>>>> theme, I wanted to emphasize that.
>>>>
>>>>> This is a migrating discussion.  It started on KDEArtist and  
>>>>> moved over
>>>>> here.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Plus, it isn't clear from your email whether this is the view  
>>>>>> of just
>>>>>>  one particular contributor to Oxygen ( who you haven't  
>>>>>> named ) or a
>>>>>>  consensus.
>>>>> Don't know.  The remark is on the other list.  IIUC, it was  
>>>>> from a major
>>>>> contributor.
>>>> yes, it was me, the art director of the project for the icon  
>>>> part. Is
>>>> this important regarding what are the issues here?
>>>>
>>>>>> Does this person agree that there is a problem with the  
>>>>>> current icons?
>>>>> No, he thinks that there is nothing wrong with the highly detailed
>>>>> icons.
>>>> In fact I think that the icon at >32x32 size *must* be detailed  
>>>> icons. I
>>>> also said that the small icons will have special versions which  
>>>> are not
>>>> done right now.
>>>> For this reason you should talk about that issue only when you  
>>>> see the
>>>> small icons when they will be availble. Current 16x16, 22x22 and  
>>>> 32x32
>>>> most are placeholders.
>>>>
>>>>>> I agree on the basic point about the current mimetype icons  
>>>>>> for ODF
>>>>>> not working well at small sizes.  My main concern is that the  
>>>>>> colours
>>>>>>  used are pale and cannot be used to tell them apart.
>>>>> The colors become pale as they are mixed with the background  
>>>>> color.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Here is a very common use case:  I have 20 or so documents of  
>>>>>> varying
>>>>>>  types in a folder, I am interested in the spreadsheets in
>>>>>> particular, and want to open one to make changes.
>>>>>> http://www.robertknight.me.uk/files/kde/oxygen-odf-mimetype- 
>>>>>> problem.png
>>>>> So, as a better illustration, I made a Oxygen style icon  
>>>>> [attached]
>>>>> which is rendered in 64x64.  Compare this with the 6x64 Oxygen  
>>>>> from
>>>>> SVN.  Note that even in 64x64 that this is blurred.  The text  
>>>>> in the
>>>>> actual Oxygen icon is black (000000) with 80% opacity which is
>>>>> actually darker than the lines representing text in my icon  
>>>>> (9B9B9B).
>>>>> However, this 80% black is mixed with the background color and  
>>>>> results
>>>>> in a lighter shade in the rasterized image.  The smaller the  
>>>>> size, the
>>>>> lighter it gets.  I note that with the similar HiColor icons  
>>>>> that I
>>>>> needed to make hand optimized PNGs for 48x48 and smaller to  
>>>>> maintain
>>>>> the contrast.
>>>> James, reading the concerns Robert is explaining above, in which  
>>>> way do
>>>> you think that icon you attached fix the pale colours he is talking
>>>> about. Comparing your icon to the rest of the mimetypes, where  
>>>> everything
>>>> has a more realistic look and feel, I may think this is a sheet  
>>>> with some
>>>> lines drawed on it, because it doesn't look like real text. The  
>>>> "lines"
>>>> as "text"  approach is for small icons, like 16x16.
>>>>
>>>> I know I already told you many times there will be versions for the
>>>> small sizes, but since you still reference the current placeholder
>>>> icons, here you can see a new version of the text mimetype as   
>>>> complete
>>>> set, inlcuding optimized 16x16 and 32x32 version:
>>> I think that you don't exactly understand my point.  My point is  
>>> about
>>> contrast.
>> You think the large ones also have too much detail, aren't clear  
>> enough? What is the problem of having a lot of detail in 128x128  
>> icons, if you can point out what the problem is there, maybe it is  
>> more clear what you mean.
>
> Too much detail is detail that is not well rendered in even 128x128  
> pixel images.  While it should be obvious that such detail is  
> unneeded, the specific problem is that this makes the icon look  
> fuzzy and reduces the contrast and spatial frequency information  
> (acuity).

detail is needed to make it look gorgeus, is that enough? if you  
don't need a gorgeous icon theme that's ok, but don't blame for ever.  
Aren't you going to use hi-color anyway?

>> I mean, if the smaller ones are all hand-optimized, and the large  
>> ones are just beautiful (they are, imho) then what is the problem?
>
> Yes the large icons look nice at 512x512 pixels, but icons need to  
> be designed to be viewed at the common sizes of 32x32 and 48x48  
> pixels. Some icons (for specific reasons) need to be hand optimized  
> for those sizes.  But, in general, Icons should be designed to look  
> good at 32x32 and 48x48 if possible.  They certainly should look  
> good at 64x64 pixels -- nothing should be fuzzy at that size.

it would look nice and 512x512 if the goal was you being able to read  
the dumb text I wrote inside. But that's not the purpose.
The goal is to make it look like real text.

Getting sick of this discussion which is pointless, since we already  
told the world we care about small resolutions.

David Vignoni, david@oxygen-icons.org
OXYGEN icon theme director and designer



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