Re: Icon theme spec on the website
On Thu, 2008-09-25 at 16:01 -0400, Rodney Dawes wrote: The simple fact is, and I have stated it several times since I first wrote the spec, is that it is meant to be both a minimal list of icon names that need to be provided to theme the *DESKTOP, as well as to provide the guidelines for naming icons as extensions to those in the spec. Then it's not an icon naming spec at all, it's a desktop icon theme spec with limited extensions. It's up to the theme creators whether they want 10% coverage or 90% coverage, you can't tell them they can't call a collection of icons a theme if it's not 100 coverage as most won't care. I have no problem adding useful, good icons to the spec. But I won't just sit around all day taking your *DEMANDS* and obeying them. Dude, read my mails to the list. I don't have hours of time to respond to every point of the cleverly written emails, as I have work to do. The only thing preventing that, is nobody else wants to take the time to do it, and I don't have the time to do it. Well, as you're the maintainer, all the decisions go past you. If you don't have the time or fail to make the right decisions, either someone should try to take to project over with your permission, or someone else is just going to fork it. Then we'll have _two_ specifications, rather than one, which won't benifit anyone. Seriously, the whole point of standardisation is for two applications to agree on common names so they can both be themed easily without lots of compat symlinks. If the Pigdin and empathy guys came forward and said hey guys, we've agreed on 10 shared names for the icons in both our applications, then we should welcome them with open arms, and make it EASY to get the names added to the spec, not fight with them and make them feel stupid. We certainly _shouldn't_ be telling them to rewrite their applications with less icons, or to tell them that 7 can go in the spec and three can't, as then they'll both just end up shipping 10 each themselves and telling people that it was too hard to use standardised icons. Richard. ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Icon theme spec on the website
On Thu, 2008-09-25 at 16:01 -0400, Rodney Dawes wrote: Also, it has always been the intent to create addendum specifications which list standardized icon names for other specific genres of applications. For example, I have already started on a standardized list of device icon names[1], though it is only a .txt file currently, I really don't want to be flaming here, but just to echo Richard's and Toma's concerns it's worth pointing out that (significant parts of) device-names.txt isn't currently used by GNOME.. and it probably won't be used in it's current state. I'm not aware of anyone actually using it. It's not that we (the gnome-vfs, gvfs and gio developers) didn't try, just see [1] for lack of response, it's that I've (me personally, since I've been carrying the torch) been met with tons of resistance and been told again and again that what we needed was over-complicated and so forth. So I opted for my own extensions and it almost works great (still need to take advantage of the new emblem stuff though); this list of icon names is now, in a very real way, the de-facto standard for GNOME based environments. And it's probably already leaking into applications. On a more constructive note, I think the icon naming spec is a good idea. As a community (GNOME, KDE, XFCE, E, etc.) we're not really good at executing that vision though. Something to think about. FWIW, I'd love to work with other desktops (and Rodney of course) on standardizing device names into one of the so-called addendum specifications. I, like Richard and others, just don't like getting told it's too complicated especially when a) we already have fallbacks in place to avoid needing thousands of icons; and b) there's a resistance to even wanting to understand why a certain naming scheme is chosen. IOW, it's fine that the icon-naming-spec promotes simplicity. The fallback scheme is the key; it allows a rich experience where, for example, the icon for an optical disc exactly matches the disc. It's, as a continuation of this example, up the the OS vendor / user to choose whether there's a single CD-ROM icon (so all discs have the same icon) or there's 10 or 20 (one for each disc type; e.g. CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+R). Someone a lot smarter than me once said: Make the simple case easy and make the complicated case possible. I think the crux of the problem is that complicated cases are frowned upon by the icon-naming spec maintainer. And I think that needs to be fixed. There's also a problem that there's no real list to discuss the icon naming spec on. I'm on tango-artists lists but I don't tend to read it as 99% of all messages are noisy to me (I'm sure it's a great list, I personally just don't draw icons). I don't think xdg-list is a great place either. Shrug. Hope this clarifies. And here's to hoping this message will be read constructively. Thanks. David [1] : http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=506532 ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Icon theme spec on the website
On Wed, 2008-09-24 at 11:30 +0200, Stephan Arts wrote: I noticed system-suspend system-hibernate and system-reboot are missing from 0.8.90, is that is CVS? I've given up on the icon-naming-spec, it's just too hard for developers to get dobey to add new icons without a massive flame-war. I think the crux of the problem is that some people see the icon naming specification as a shared specification so that applications can have shared icon names, and other people see it as the minimum list of icons you have to draw in a theme. The former makes a lot of sense to me, but the latter... not so. Richard. ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Icon theme spec on the website
2008/9/25 Richard Hughes [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Wed, 2008-09-24 at 11:30 +0200, Stephan Arts wrote: I noticed system-suspend system-hibernate and system-reboot are missing from 0.8.90, is that is CVS? I've given up on the icon-naming-spec, it's just too hard for developers to get dobey to add new icons without a massive flame-war. I think the crux of the problem is that some people see the icon naming specification as a shared specification so that applications can have shared icon names, and other people see it as the minimum list of icons you have to draw in a theme. Agreed. Too long have I battled with ridiculous icon names. Over in E town, we're trying to get the icon themes to provide icons for the file manager, but the majority of icon themes use hacks and links to get them to work with a particular version of whatever. Now, you can blame this on the icon packager, but part of the blame is in the spec, for not outlining all the details. That said, the whole spec needs a re-think and needs some serious additions and rules. Toma The former makes a lot of sense to me, but the latter... not so. Richard. ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Icon theme spec on the website
The details are in the spec. The problem with file type icons is people assign arbitrary things as the MIME type. Like application/foo for audio files, or text types. It seems like most new things just end up under application/ when they would be better suited to other groups, or perhaps should have new sane groups created. There are very few types for which application actually makes sense as a grouping. Having these sorts of types defined, makes it very hard to easily fall back to a sane generic icon. This is why the new generic icon stuff was added to the Shared MIME spec, and is in shared-mime-info now. The icon-naming-utils package is and always was meant as a crutch, to help us move forward, without sacrificing compatibility in the meantime. It is not a hack, but a temporary bandage to help with the insane number of icons we have in the desktop. So, I'm not quite sure what you mean by having battled with ridiculous icon names or anything. I've never seen any e-mail from you on this list, the tango list, or personally, asking for clarification where you might be confused with some wording in the spec, or to propose new icons, or anything. And it is rather insulting for your first e-mail to be one of such bold insistence that the spec needs a re-think and serious additions and rules, and still yet you have any to propose. If you have something to propose, then do so. Don't lurk in the background and wait for an opportunity to complain. Propose it, and there can be discussion and acceptance or denial of your proposal as is fit. Making rash demands without any supporting information, is not making a proposal. -- Rodney On Thu, 2008-09-25 at 23:06 +0800, Toma wrote: Agreed. Too long have I battled with ridiculous icon names. Over in E town, we're trying to get the icon themes to provide icons for the file manager, but the majority of icon themes use hacks and links to get them to work with a particular version of whatever. Now, you can blame this on the icon packager, but part of the blame is in the spec, for not outlining all the details. That said, the whole spec needs a re-think and needs some serious additions and rules. Toma ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Icon theme spec on the website
On Thu, 2008-09-25 at 15:38 +0100, Richard Hughes wrote: On Wed, 2008-09-24 at 11:30 +0200, Stephan Arts wrote: I noticed system-suspend system-hibernate and system-reboot are missing from 0.8.90, is that is CVS? I've given up on the icon-naming-spec, it's just too hard for developers to get dobey to add new icons without a massive flame-war. It's not that hard. You just want to make it hard. When I asked for more details in support of adding the system-software-installer icon (which you simply *demanded* be included, rather than subtly proposed), all I got back was you ranting about how *hard* it is to get an icon in the spec. I'm sorry, but if asking for supporting evidence is somehow the start to a flame war, then something is seriously wrong, and it's not on my end. I think the crux of the problem is that some people see the icon naming specification as a shared specification so that applications can have shared icon names, and other people see it as the minimum list of icons you have to draw in a theme. No. The problem is that there are people who expect the spec to be a list of icons to use, and that's it. And what's what you're expecting it to be. The simple fact is, and I have stated it several times since I first wrote the spec, is that it is meant to be both a minimal list of icon names that need to be provided to theme the *DESKTOP, as well as to provide the guidelines for naming icons as extensions to those in the spec. All applications may not necessarily be part of the desktop. And just as impossible as it is for applications to always depend on the absolute base set of icons at all times, it is impossible for any single spec to provide a list of all possible icon names. The real problem is that too many applications have too many icons that they don't actually need, but the developers are so insistent that they must be there. I have no problem adding useful, good icons to the spec. But I won't just sit around all day taking your *DEMANDS* and obeying them. I don't have a lot of time to maintain the spec. I don't get to hack on whatever I feel like all day, and get paid to do so. Were I to, perhaps I could concentrate more time on the spec. Until then, I don't have time to deal with demands. If you want to make rational proposals, and aren't opposed to having rational discussions in order to provide supporting arguments, and to deal with supporting counter-arguments, then I am by all means open to responding to those e-mails and updating the spec to include icons, given that rational discussion suggests it best to do so. Also, it has always been the intent to create addendum specifications which list standardized icon names for other specific genres of applications. For example, I have already started on a standardized list of device icon names[1], though it is only a .txt file currently, and not Docbook. There is absolutely no reason this can't also be done for Development Tools or Graphics Tools as well. The only thing preventing that, is nobody else wants to take the time to do it, and I don't have the time to do it. Thanks, Rodney [1] http://people.freedesktop.org/~dobey/device-names.txt ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Icon theme spec on the website
On Thu, 2008-09-25 at 21:05 +0200, Jakob Petsovits wrote: And a staging area. Like, a place where developers can list their icons regardless of applicability in other desktops, and other devs list theirs too, and everyone can have a look at what similar applications use and consequently agree on a single naming set. You mean like the Missing Icons List and Additional Icons bits on the icon-naming-spec wiki page [1]? I think Diana Fong created these a while back, but they never went anywhere, because she left Red Hat, and nobody else ever pays attention to the wiki. It's obvious you didn't look there, for example. And I can't force people to use it. I believe a major problem is that the desktops just don't know of each other, and use whatever non-standard icon names they can just think of, even if the other desktop has already done lots of thinking about this issue and might have a sounder solution. If we want people to work together on icons, we should know what the other's icons are and how they can be made to fit into a single scheme. And when people agree on a given name and description, they should go into the spec. I don't think it's a real problem. The whole purpose of the spec was to solve this. And I think it's doing fairly well now. KDE 3.5 was obviously a big problem here, but nobody ever wanted to change it to follow the spec, because everyone was waiting for KDE 4. I wanted to throw up a website to facilitate this for a long time, but it just never fit into my schedule. Maybe someone likes the idea and feels motivated to help the devs come together for icon naming and more detailed usage descriptions :] See the wiki which we already have. All you need to do is use it, and get other people to use it. This stuff needs to happen on freedesktop.org, not on kde.org or somewhere else. I also believe that an icon naming specification should not aim to have developers rethink how their application works, which is what dobey also tried to do with the spec. How interfaces are designed is subject to a given desktop and its user interface paradigms and HIG, trying to force a specific way of working onto the other desktop is imho something that slowed down icon adoption. No, it's not what I tried to do with the spec. I tried to facilitate the lowest common denominator. If some desktop really thinks they need to provide significantly more icons in the base theme, and that any theme designed for that desktop needs to provide those icons as well, there is nothing preventing that from occurring. But such requirements are not a part of this spec, and are the responsibility of the desktop. The spec provides guidelines for naming those icons, and hopefully those icon names will be derived from ones in the spec, facilitating the fallback mechanism which is described there. What slowed adoption of the naming spec in KDE was several developers and users conflating the icon naming spec, and the tango icon theme, as well as the fact that nobody wanted to change KDE 3.5, and instead were working on other aspects of KDE 4 than icons at the time. Anyways, let it be bottom-up, not top-down. Desktops and applications use their own icons anyways (if they can find artists drawing those, at least), and won't stop doing so just because the extremely limited set of icons in the spec doesn't cater to their needs. We should try to find similarities where those already exist, and only cut down on icons when a solution can be reached that everyone is comfortable with. Again, as I've said several times. The naming spec is the lowest common denominator, and the minimal set of icons a theme should provide. Adding ever possible icon that does exist, or may exist in the future, is just not plausible, if we ever want to call it a 1.0 spec. What can be done, however, is for more specific icons, suited to more specific applications, to be defined in addendum specifications, such as the device names addendum which I have mentioned several times. My opinion is that a fixed set of icon definitions will never suffice for all the different usages there are. Let the icon naming spec be replaced a publicly editable list of which icons exist and where / how often those are used. Themers do one icon at the time anyways, so they could just pick the next one on such a priority list until they lose motivation (one could also say until they're done, but complete icon sets covering all desktops and applications don't exist and are mostly a utopian wish, imho). No. A fixed set will never suffice. And you will never finish writing a set of icon names if all you ever want to do is make a list of icon names that could possibly be shared across multiple applications. We don't need to replace the spec. We need to either get me more time to work on the spec, and creating addendum specs, by somehow employing me to do so, or you need to get people to get off their own asses
Re: Icon theme spec on the website
2008/9/26 Rodney Dawes [EMAIL PROTECTED]: The details are in the spec. The problem with file type icons is people assign arbitrary things as the MIME type. Like application/foo for audio files, or text types. It seems like most new things just end up under application/ when they would be better suited to other groups, or perhaps should have new sane groups created. There are very few types for which application actually makes sense as a grouping. Having these sorts of types defined, makes it very hard to easily fall back to a sane generic icon. This is why the new generic icon stuff was added to the Shared MIME spec, and is in shared-mime-info now. The icon-naming-utils package is and always was meant as a crutch, to help us move forward, without sacrificing compatibility in the meantime. It is not a hack, but a temporary bandage to help with the insane number of icons we have in the desktop. So, I'm not quite sure what you mean by having battled with ridiculous icon names or anything. I've never seen any e-mail from you on this list, the tango list, or personally, asking for clarification where you might be confused with some wording in the spec, or to propose new icons, or anything. And it is rather insulting for your first e-mail to be one of such bold insistence that the spec needs a re-think and serious additions and rules, and still yet you have any to propose. My gripe has nothing to do with the spec, but more the lack of support by the applications that use it, and the icon themes than try to follow it. I guess it really comes down to the level that the spec is enforced (along with many other FDO specs that get abused (see my comments on the systray spec)). Having spent a good amount of time trying to create a template to import 'real-world' icon themes into a FDO compliant icon theme, I realised a large amount of icons are named 'gnome-applications-blah' or 'xfce-something' which largely defeats the purpose of making icons cross-DE compliant. Again, not much to do with the spec, but it shows that there is/was a situation where these targetted icon names were used. I have neither the time or will to actually find what versions and what apps sue it, but its a little disheartening to see this kind of use still being covered in modern icon themes. If you have something to propose, then do so. Don't lurk in the background and wait for an opportunity to complain. Propose it, and there can be discussion and acceptance or denial of your proposal as is fit. Making rash demands without any supporting information, is not making a proposal. I like the proposed names here [http://people.freedesktop.org/~dobey/device-names.txt] as they have specific uses and have the ability to expand to other devices. One common mis-use is 'device-hd.png', 'device-harddrive.png', 'device-harddisk.png'... as you can see, you can call something a whole pile of legitimate names and then the icon theme ends up having to cover those names. Thats just 1 example. One way to fix this, is splitting the spec into 3 sections. 1. The basic most common use icons, which include the icons used by a bare install of a DE. This includes basic file manager, device, settings, and login icons. 2. The advanced icons, things like bluetooth, emotes, emblems, actions, status stuff. 3. Application and MIME type icons. This way an icon themer can see the specifics and see the naming in more coherrant detail. Also so that the naming system can be demonstrated further, so that one can easily fill in any missing icons without huge amount of philosophical thought. I like the idea of this: [http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/icon-naming-spec/desktop-icon-lists] so that it can be browsed categorically. Perhaps we can start filling out the missing pages? Or perhaps an easy system of submitting icon names? Something along the lines of a text entry with a drop down for the category the icon should belong in? Then someone/everyone accepts the filename and it gets added to the spec, so that appluications can register their icons to the spec. For 1 or a few people to create this database, it would be quite time consuming, and I applaud all youve done already Rodney. The other benefit of a database of icon names, is the ability to search it and find an icon name that suits your application or action and impliment that instead of dreaming up some crazy filename. Glad we're discussing it :) Toma -- Rodney On Thu, 2008-09-25 at 23:06 +0800, Toma wrote: Agreed. Too long have I battled with ridiculous icon names. Over in E town, we're trying to get the icon themes to provide icons for the file manager, but the majority of icon themes use hacks and links to get them to work with a particular version of whatever. Now, you can blame this on the icon packager, but part of the blame is in the spec, for not outlining all the details. That said, the whole spec needs a re-think and needs some serious additions and
Re: Icon theme spec on the website
On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 11:41 PM, Vincent Untz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le mardi 23 septembre 2008, à 17:37 -0400, Rodney Dawes a écrit : Do you know of some way to make the -latest.html link get generated from the spec in cvs, rather than just pointing at the latest version that was released? There hasn't been a release since the 0.8 version of the spec. It's not possible to automatically generate things from CVS -- there are some commands to run. But this is something we'll want to do. I suppose I can make an 0.9 version if there is some immediate pressing need to do so. Note that a 0.8.90 just appeared :-) I'll remove it once you release 0.9, though. I noticed system-suspend system-hibernate and system-reboot are missing from 0.8.90, is that is CVS? Vincent Stephan ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Icon theme spec on the website
Le mercredi 24 septembre 2008, à 11:30 +0200, Stephan Arts a écrit : On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 11:41 PM, Vincent Untz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le mardi 23 septembre 2008, à 17:37 -0400, Rodney Dawes a écrit : Do you know of some way to make the -latest.html link get generated from the spec in cvs, rather than just pointing at the latest version that was released? There hasn't been a release since the 0.8 version of the spec. It's not possible to automatically generate things from CVS -- there are some commands to run. But this is something we'll want to do. I suppose I can make an 0.9 version if there is some immediate pressing need to do so. Note that a 0.8.90 just appeared :-) I'll remove it once you release 0.9, though. I noticed system-suspend system-hibernate and system-reboot are missing from 0.8.90, is that is CVS? The 0.8.90 spec was genereated from HEAD, no I'd guess the answer is no. Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Icon theme spec on the website
On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 11:39 AM, Vincent Untz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le mercredi 24 septembre 2008, à 11:30 +0200, Stephan Arts a écrit : On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 11:41 PM, Vincent Untz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le mardi 23 septembre 2008, à 17:37 -0400, Rodney Dawes a écrit : Do you know of some way to make the -latest.html link get generated from the spec in cvs, rather than just pointing at the latest version that was released? There hasn't been a release since the 0.8 version of the spec. It's not possible to automatically generate things from CVS -- there are some commands to run. But this is something we'll want to do. I suppose I can make an 0.9 version if there is some immediate pressing need to do so. Note that a 0.8.90 just appeared :-) I'll remove it once you release 0.9, though. I noticed system-suspend system-hibernate and system-reboot are missing from 0.8.90, is that is CVS? The 0.8.90 spec was genereated from HEAD, no I'd guess the answer is no. Ok, then a question for Rodney: 'could you add those icon-names?' Stephan ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Icon theme spec on the website
On Wednesday 24 September 2008, Stephan Arts wrote: On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 11:39 AM, Vincent Untz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le mercredi 24 septembre 2008, à 11:30 +0200, Stephan Arts a écrit : I noticed system-suspend system-hibernate and system-reboot are missing from 0.8.90, is that is CVS? The 0.8.90 spec was genereated from HEAD, no I'd guess the answer is no. Ok, then a question for Rodney: 'could you add those icon-names?' ...which were previously agreed to by a reasonable number of XFCE, GNOME and KDE people on the XDG list, a few months ago. ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Icon theme spec on the website
Do you know of some way to make the -latest.html link get generated from the spec in cvs, rather than just pointing at the latest version that was released? There hasn't been a release since the 0.8 version of the spec. I suppose I can make an 0.9 version if there is some immediate pressing need to do so. -- Rodney On Tue, 2008-09-23 at 14:11 -0700, Bastien Nocera wrote: Hey Vincent, Could you (or any authorised person), please update the icon naming spec on the website: http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html It doesn't look like the spec on the website has been updated for 2 years... Cheers ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Icon theme spec on the website
Le mardi 23 septembre 2008, à 14:11 -0700, Bastien Nocera a écrit : Hey Vincent, Could you (or any authorised person), please update the icon naming spec on the website: http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html Done. Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
Re: Icon theme spec on the website
Le mardi 23 septembre 2008, à 17:37 -0400, Rodney Dawes a écrit : Do you know of some way to make the -latest.html link get generated from the spec in cvs, rather than just pointing at the latest version that was released? There hasn't been a release since the 0.8 version of the spec. It's not possible to automatically generate things from CVS -- there are some commands to run. But this is something we'll want to do. I suppose I can make an 0.9 version if there is some immediate pressing need to do so. Note that a 0.8.90 just appeared :-) I'll remove it once you release 0.9, though. Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. ___ xdg mailing list xdg@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
