Juergen Schmidt wrote:
Lars Nooden wrote:
Bernhard Dippold wrote:
In my eyes these colors have a message we shouldn't give up without
having thought about the positive and negative aspects of this change.
Same with the product information in the icons.
Many icon themes use one or two colors (not counting greyscale shading).
Is there a convenient way to set up a mask so that distros and versions
of distros can overlay their own colors? Acceptance of the icons would
be easier if there were a simple way to tune them to fit in with
established desktop themes.
Is that really the point? I think no, the key message of the icons is
to strengthen the ODF brand. And that application independent! For ODF
it is important that people understand the openness of the format,
that it is based on a standard and that it can be used with different
applications.
From my point of view it makes really sense to have this unique icons
for ODF files. And hopefully most often OpenOffice.org is the default
app on the system to open these files.
[FYI - I started this email a few days ago and some of the points have
been made by others, but I wanted to comment so will just send it as is..]
Could not agree more with that opinion, when the discussion is regarding
mime file type icons. The value of branding the actual file types for
ODF it seems to me is one of the most important steps to be performed at
this point. OpenOffice.org, thanks to the work of many individuals and
organizations, has achieved a strong name recognition.
OpenOffice.org with the apparent penetration obtained to date in the
Microsoft desktop market and near certain majority of the Linux desktop,
is really the only application to spearhead this effort. Name
recognition and market share are capital, and capital needs to be
invested - an investment targeted to building an ODF brand like a
winning proposition from even an OpenOffice.org centric perspective.
The new file type icon set developed appears quite good to my eye; the
lack, or singularity, of the color theme seems to me a good thing. Think
Adobe here for their simple red themed PDF format. Microsoft has already
established a rather strong association between blue and doc file format
- OK, we have a little different blue - works for me :>) After all we
want folks to refer to text documents and mean Open Document Text
Documents...right.
That said, and just to be sure, there is no talk here of changing the
icons displayed by the OpenOffice.org executables - in all their current
and glorious color. I believe that's correct?
To me then the issue that is of concern is the start center. I really
think that users will have no problem making a distinction, in their
minds, between what we display in the start center and what we display
in the operating system supplied functionality for file types. (
Explorer, Finder, Browser, etc ) That does not mean I feel *strongly*
that the current application icons must not be changed, or the actual
start center graphics - if someone in the arts group wants to take a run
at adding our current color theme to the proposed mime type icons for
use in the start center I for one would love to see it.
What I would hope to see along with such a change would be a shift in
the marketing materials such that the ODF mime file-type icons are
emphasized over a diminished perhaps, but maintained, use of the
OpenOffice.org specific application icons - and - color themes. This is
my definition of investing OpenOffice.org capital, this inclusion of ODF
as a specific feature within all of the communities activities.
It seems to me that such an action would make it more likely that Linux
distributions would want to use these mime type icons in their default,
non application specific, icon sets. With regards to other applications
that also use the ODF file type and OS distro's changing the application
icons - well they do that now, so that is a non issue in my mind - just
assume they will do so in the future.
Actually, looking at this question of separating the use of the odf mime
type icons from the start center I can't help but think such would be
best for the other cross platform applications based on OpenOffice.org
code - Symphony, OOo4Kids jump to mind, then count in Novell
OpenOffice.org, Star Office. Each project going after a slightly
different segment of users and so seems fitting that they will want to
change the application specific iconography to match. In the case of
OOo4Kids, Novell OO.o and Star Office each use the start center, IIRC.
IMO building such brand recognition for ODF will require not just our
use of the icons but will require an active and orchestrated outreach to
other groups and organizations from individuals within the
OpenOffice.org community. [again I saw some mail about such actions ]
As for timing - outreach first seems to be what I am reading in a number
of emails, well - IMO - leading means getting out in front at times. The
efforts put into this by those involved have been quite evident and the
product produced, both the graphics and the goals attained, quite
impressive to me. So sure seems like the wrong time to stop for too long
- again I'm very focused on this ODF mime type branding.
It is also my opinion that this does not require the use of, change to,
the Start Center design, per se, but I am just one guy and recognize
that others will honestly see this differently.
Thanks,
Drew
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