El jue, 22-01-2009 a las 14:02 -0500, bulia byak escribió:

On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 12:47 PM, Guillermo Espertino <gespertino@...400...> wrote:

...

I haven't commit rights to do the change myself, so i'd like to ask someone who do, to apply the change if there are no objections.

There are objections. It was already discussed on this list, please search the archives.

Bulia: I've take a look at nable archives and found a couple of threads. Please let me know if there's something else.

I found that the issues were basically about: -Style. -Licensing. -Set completion.

About Style: Some people thought that some icons looked bad (bucket fill, 3D box, the coloring scheme of some geometric primitives). The Tango style has quite clear guidelines about that. For instance, the 3D box. According the guidelines, the projection has to be 1 point perspective. The current icon respects that and gives an idea of what to expect of the tool. Maybe it isn't the best way to represent perspective but it respects the guidelines. The bucket fill icon already exists in the Art Libre set and is used in other tools, like Gimp. The goal of this set is to achieve an even look between free graphic applications, so I can't see why change it. Again, maybe it isn't the best representation of a paint bucket but nobody will have problems to imagine what the tool does. About the color of the primitives: They are primitives, they are basic building blocks for constructing shapes... I think they are something generic and it's fine to represent them in neutral shades. Again, Scribus uses the same approach. Maybe there is room for an extra discussion about the need of changing some custom icons to match the existing ones in other applications (for instance, the flipping tools. Make them look as GIMP's one).

The current icon set looks a tad childish. I showed inkscape to a lot of fellow designers and they always make comments about the look, but they are surprised by the excellent features. When I show them GIMP or Scribus they rant about missing features, not about the look. I really think that many people may be overlooking inkscape because it doesn't look "pro".

About Licensing: I found a comment (curiously from the same guy who finished the set) stating that the CC License of Tango icons is not compatible with a GPL program. I don't know if that's still an issue but it doesn't seem to be a problem for Scribus and GIMP people.

About set completion: The set is pretty complete now. Maybe there are too much icons in the menus (I've also read that it's not desirable) but there isn't any icon of the current set missing.

Well, this is more or less a summary of what I found. I'd like to know what people think about the current state of the set and about the idea of making it the default one.

Please let me know if I'm missing something else.

bulia byak wrote:

To me, it does not. It looks like this is a tool for drawing a rectangle with a trapezoid on top :)

Hahaha. Well, I have to agree. Since there are no 3D box tools and the set is not strictly Tango or Art Libre, maybe we can make a little exception and create something more "perspective-ish". It won't be a valid Tango icon but in my honest opinion, that's better than the current set.

...

I really think that many people may be overlooking inkscape because it doesn't look "pro".

I really doubt that. Some of the icons deep inside are atrocious, yes, but the tool icons on the "front page" are perfectly OK. Thousands of people got used to them already, I really see no reason to change them now. They are in documentation, forums, screenshots, etc. etc. It will be a very disruptive change for no compelling reason at all.

Well, it isn't completely true. Go to inkscape.org and check the screenshots section... Currently there are two screenshots when you click that link, and one is an incomplete Tango :-p

I also have to disagree with you about some points: I don't think the change in the icons will be too disruptive (most of the toolbar icons are pretty similar, but more polished) and I don't think the reason of unifying the look of the most important free graphics applications isn't compelling enough. The current icons are perfectly OK, but a lot of people find them too cartoony/childish for a capable application like Inkscape.

Unfortunately we are only a few discussing this. I'd like to know how the community feels about this. Defaulting the Tango in SVN set would be a nice opportunity to see what's the reaction of a larger portion of the users. If the majority want the old icons back, it's only matter of reverting the change and that's it.

Maybe we can reach a compromise - tangoify all icons except the tool icons?

What about a better 3D box tool and a revision of the toolbar icons that are too different compared with the old set? ;-)

Gez.

It is not against Tango guidelines to have an angled perspective http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Theme_Guidelines#Tilted_Table I think that Tilted table fits perfectly for the 3DBox tool icon perspective.

I use this one http://img129.imageshack.us/my.php?image=draw3dboxwh8.png because the one that came with tango really looked confusing. The outlines render sharp in svg, my png export is blurred.

About the basic tools same color: rules and guidelines are there to protect the usability, but when it's evident the rules are going against it we shouldn't follow them. Maybe it's just a matter of habit and with time I (and others) would get used to same basic shape color, but now it seems having different colors helps me find them more quickly. It's much easier to distinguish between red and blue than between a circle and rectangle of the same color (and at that size). It does seem logical to make them same color because it's not the color that's the message of the tool, but then why is the bucket blue with yellow ink, or gradient icon green? If you make basic shapes all same color why not others as well (like Photoshop). Anyway I hope all this makes sense, I still vote for different colors.

If you decide to go with the Tango set, all of the toolbars must be Tango. It would probably be the worst option to mix icon styles.

I do agree that the main tools toolbar is the biggest issue, maybe there are ways to fix those issues. Here's a small part of the main toolbar as I use it, I'm one of those who think Pen, Pencil and Calligraphy look weird "bottoms up" so I made my own versions of 2 of them. In GIMP Pen is upwards, while Pencil and Paitbrush are downwards. Is Pen so different it needs a different orientation?

Mihaela aka prkos

I vote for keeping icos as they're right now. I don't see any benefit in changing them at this point.

I don't see why the proponents of this idea try to impose Tango icons over default ones when going from one icon set to another is a namechange away. Another concern is that some people here seems to assume that users thing current ones look "unprofessional" or that everyone needs "unification" or that many people will like the Tango ones just because they follow some guidelines or are the same color, etc. I disagree with everything above. First we don't know what is the profile of the average Inkscape user so we don't know if he likes tango, if he prefers one shade over differentiated colors, if he uses other apps like Gimp or Scribus (personal opinion: i use Inky and Indesign and Photoshop)... Hell, we don't even know what is the majority operating systems of these users, which brings me the following point: what is "unification"? Keep in mind that not everyone uses Tango icons, not everyone uses gnome, and not everyone uses even Linux! What about users in Windows or MacOS?? This won't bring any unification for them for the most part unless they have Gimp or Scribus (maybe other apps), and not everyone is using them with Inkscape. So what's the deal? Also about the point of icons being made of a single color vs. multiple colors... well, maybe is matter of taste, but i like icons to be distinctive in shape and colors. A single shade of a color won't make them inherently "better", rather the contrary (IMHO). Adobe has done that (single color icons with minimum saturation) and is a hit-and-miss approach. In one hand they won't distract the user, on the other difficulties on picking and telling apart tools might arise (i'm talking about experience).

I could agree that the current icons could use some improvements here and there but bashing them and sustituting them just based on those arguments seems a bit unfair to me. Why we don't try to see what current icons are worth for and improve from that? or improve the Preferences dialog to let the user choose easily between icons sets? As english say "don't throw the baby with the bathwater".

Well, that's my opinion ;)

Oh... and another thought. The default stock icons in GTK are already Tango icons, so inkscape already has a some Tango in it already. You see that mostly in the non-linux world. So there's another consistency here: inkscape consistency with.... itself!

1. I much prefer the Standard icon set. I find it more distinct and

easier to distinguish at a glance because of this. This just means it is less work for my brain and eyes to use it.

I agree. I always found the tools quickly with current icons.

To Joel Holdsworth: Well, that's the theory. They're basically saying "your app won't look out of place with Tango icons", but I have to add "yeah, sure,... unless the user ONLY uses that one app with tango icons and no other". In that case his app will be surrounded by OS default icons, and other apps icons which will be different. To me that point is the theory not the practice... we're back to start: we don't know the profile of the average Inkscape user and we don't know if he uses other tangoified apps or not. If the point is about ISVs wanting consistency between OS, that can be achieved with any iconset: just use them in every platform!!

To Guillermo Espertino You're very unfair in your appreciations.First is not what I think, rather what it really is. You say that inkscape is not an isolated app, well I didn't say it was or it wasn't because -again- no one knows who's the average user of Inkscape. Assuming that a majority is using other FOSS apps suchs as Scribus or Gimp is a pretty wild guess. Keep in mind also that there are other workflows combined with Adobe CS products (my case and i work happily with them) or people making fonts (think of inkscape+fontforge).

Which brings me to my last point: can we define what an average workflow is? can we define what a good intgration is? Let me explain this. You said:

"You don't seem to care about the fact that Inkscape is free software and there are people interested in achieving a good workflow between other free packages, but that's very important for many of us."

A bit unfair, don't you think? First' that is not the case. Second, I'm sure everyone here has a different opinion about what a good workflow/integration is ;) Actually now that you mention you're talking about VISUAL integration, which (IMHO) is a minor issue. Integration in a broader sense is what user needs to improve his workflow, like in Creative Suite. And I'm talking about major integration here! ;) For example in CS: -Sharing swatches between apps. -Ability to import Illustrator and PSD files to Indesign. -Ability to manipulate PSD, AI and PDF layers visibility from Indesign. -Ability to place vector art from Illustrator directly into Photoshop. -And others I don't remember right know. ** In brief: anything that avoids generating intermediate files or losing time sharing resources between apps. So my point is not that I don't like the idea of a workflow, my point is that to me a good workflow is something bigger than just sharing icons. In fact I could argue that sharing icons is a bad idea, as those are differents apps, with differents philosophies and differents tools.

Last time I saw Scribus it didin't import SVG files correctly. Let's apply Creative Suite philosophy to FOSS apps: -Ability to share swatches (CMYK/RGB/Spot) between apps. -Ability to place SVG files in Scribus. -Ability to edit a vector/bitmap file from Scribus with just one click (maybe is already there). -Ability to edit a bitmap file from inkscape (good, already there). -And some other things...?

To everyone: I think that, if this thread proves something, everyone has a different idea of what a good iconset is. That's why I still suggest that this should be done gradually. Here are pro-tango and people who want default ones so this seems to point that a GUI for selecting iconsets would be more efficient and sane as first steps.

Regards.

Guillermo Espertino wrote: <snip />

Unfortunately we are only a few discussing this. I'd like to know how the community feels about this.

I'm a casual user of Inkscape and run a FOSS consulting business in the UK.

I would agree that Inkscape could be made to look more professional with the Tango set and I would prefer if it had a similar look and feel to the other apps like Gimp.

I've attached a screen-shot of the Gimp and Inkscape side-by-side for comparison in Ubuntu 8.10. (don't know if it will work on the list but was worth a try...)

Hope this helps in your discussions.

BR

Alan Lord The Open Learning Centre http://www.theopenlearningcentre.com

On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 8:42 PM, Guillermo Espertino <gespertino@...400...> wrote:

(...) The current icon set looks a tad childish. I showed inkscape to a lot of fellow designers and they always make comments about the look, but they are surprised by the excellent features. When I show them GIMP or Scribus they rant about missing features, not about the look. I really think that many people may be overlooking inkscape because it doesn't look "pro".

Yes! I must enforce that.

About Licensing: I found a comment (curiously from the same guy who finished the set) stating that the CC License of Tango icons is not compatible with a GPL program. I don't know if that's still an issue but it doesn't seem to be a problem for Scribus and GIMP people.

Ups... Not exactly... http://tango.freedesktop.org/ArtLibreSet The Tango Art Set is licensed under GPL.

The main Tango collection is under CC, and we do not need it.

I think jEsuSdA is free to license this theme under GPL. This theme uses derived CC icons? If yes, we can redraw this ones.

Well, this is more or less a summary of what I found. I'd like to know what people think about the current state of the set and about the idea of making it the default one.

Tango is good to Inkscape interface because is efficient and beautiful. And more than this, using tango we well have a near visual identity with our FOSS friend projects.

On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 2:14 AM, Michael Grosberg <grosberg.michael@...400...> wrote:

Since most of the objections seem to focus on the tool icons in the tango set, how about soliciting suggestions for alternate tango-themed tool icons from the community? The current tool icons are pretty close to Tango anyway and I think they're just a couple of tweaks away from looking in place with the tango set.

I'm certain some compromise could be found between the usability of the current icons and a consistency of style with other application and with the stock Tango Inkscape inherits from the system (save, load, undo etc.). There are many talented people in th eInkscape community, tap that resource.

Agreed. Tango can't be so inflexible as to allow only one possible look! Let's see some other variants for the tools, ideally closer to the current set. Personally, I'm especially unhappy with: non-3d box; clumsy bucket; non-colored shapes; upwards pen/pencil.

Hello!

Just I want to add some ideas to this interesting and relevant discussion (excuse my poor english ;)):

*Tango Icon Guidelines*:

The main important thing Tango brings to us is the guidelines. They are created having in mind the usablility and consiscency.

It's sure that there are nice icon set that you preffer because they are more detailed, colorfull or anything else, but tango looks great with clear, neutra, dark backgrouds themes (the default inkscape set does not do that).

The idea is not to discuss about what theme I like or not, because there are thousand of people, and every one have a opinion: the same thing could be loved by one person and hated by other one.

The thing is: what icon theme is more "correct" or "consistent".

*Others Apps*:

Another thing I think is very very important is the consistency between apps. Lot of apps (on Linux, Windows and Mac) uses Tango Icon guidelines (openoffice, firefox, scribus, gimp, ... and much more http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Showroom )

Then, this icons are familiar for more and more people...

Art libre graphic set brings us the oportunity to make more easy the learning of the tools. Similar tools has similar icon. An this is great for the new users, who can easily supose what can they do with these tools. And this is a great point what we must do not forgot.

I know some howtos and tutorials and documentation are made with the original inkscape icon set, but this can not to be a obstacle to migrate them, because Inkscape evolves every day (new tools, new palettes, new controls...) and this new stuff are added althoug they involves changes on the user interface... and no one says "Hey dude! don't add this tool! some users may not understand this when they open the new X palette and see some new buttons!!!"

I'ts sure they are much more documentation about Gimp whit the older interface and tools and icons than Inkscape has now, but it was not a problem when they decide change the icon theme... now all the howtos new books and other documentation has the new icons and there is not problem about that.

*License* There are no problems about that, because all icons taken from LibreGraphic are GPL, and new icons I made could be licensed with GPL tool.

*Others SSOO* Yea, some SSOO like Windows or Mac has his own icon theme... well, some Windows and Mac Apps has his own icons too that does not looks like the main environment....

But the oficial Inkscape icon theme does not looks similar to ... nothing but itself! Then I don't see problem at all.

In fact, Gnome main Icon theme looks like the Tango one, then, every Ubuntu and Gnome user find your Inkscape with Tango Icons more integrated than the official theme.

*People working on this...*

I think there are no so much people making icons for Inkscape. And this is SO IMPORTANT.

I have read a lot of comments like - The X icon must be redone... - We must tu change the oficial icons and redone all with this and this and this look... - It will be great to redesign this and this and this...

Well, maybe youre on the way. So much work could be done... but Who will do that? How many designers are makins icons for the Inkscape UI?

We must be realistic. We are who we are, and we must think having in mind the resources we have.

The Tango icon theme could be improve, Sure! but there are no much time, no much designers....

We can use it, and then, we can modify it step by step; For example, the 3DBox, we can modify it. I will modify it and others it the people want it, but, please, I think there are no time and no enought resources to make a new full icon theme from the begining that every one like it. It's impossible....

*Icon Theme Selector*

A nice icon theme selector could be a great solution. The user can return to the original theme (or another one) easily if the users wants.

And then, could be a statistic system who brings us data about how many people uses one theme or other... maybe...

*The End*

Well, Sorry about this not short mail. I hope this discussion brings us a new opportunity to improve this great piece of software. The Tango Icon theme could be improved by others icon themes, this is sure, but I think it brings the users some important things like usability, consistency, and integration.

Salu2 de jEsuSdA 8)