Hi Peter, *
Peter Junge schrieb:
Hi Bernhard,
sorry for the late reply, I took some time off.
No problem - I've been quite busy too ;-)
Bernhard Dippold wrote:
Hi Peter, all,
Peter Junge wrote:
[...] Whatever installation comes last provides
the icons.
If it is not customizable during installation...
I do not remember any setup routine of any application, that gave me any
choice in that regard.
There are several applications that ask for the file types to be
associated with the program during installation. If you chose not to
modify the present associations, the icons stay the same.
You're right, that there is no choice for the icons, but even OOo leaves
the MS Office icons when you chose not to associate .DOC, .XLS and .PPT
files with OOo.
[...]
My approach: show the user by the icons which application is the
standard one to open a certain file format. This may be done by an
application symbol in rather low contrast (to keep the main interest
on the ODF part).
Is this a real use case? I know, all people discussing here have of
course several applications installed that are implementing ODF, but out
does this apply to the average user?
Perhaps not now. But it's easy to imagine that there will be a
lightweighed ODF viewer application in the near future - and then
they'll have two.
(I'd include this viewer in OOo to reduce startup time, but that's
another story)
In case their are several applications installed, the user should be
able to choose using the context menu, Gnome for example does it that
way. A next step to better user experience could be to first display a
common icon, as proposed here for ODF, and when hovering over it a list
of application specific icons pops up. But that's not within the scope
of OOo, but it's up to the desktop projects.
All this discussion is a bit out of OOo scope - but it's our task in OOo
marketing to avoid developments that might reduce our presence in the
user's mind.
I don't want people to say "I opened this ODF program - can't remember
it's name". If they said "I opened the ODF program with the bird symbol"
I'd be fine...
The present ODF icons don't have anything in common with our application
icons - this is negative OOo marketing in my eyes.
At least if people want to modify their documents it is important
which application is opening, beacuse the features differ quite a lot.
If you only want to view a PDF or JPG file (or hear a MP3), this is
less important.
Well it's certainly a difference if a JPEG is opened with a viewer or
with a manipulator.
Same with ODF: Even if the viewer is not finished by now, it's very
likely to come. The present ODF supporting applications differ in
functionality, so different manipulations are possible.
General remark: I didn't find the time to read the whole discussion
here, so I might reiterate things that have already been said. Anyway I
think this discussion is mostly happening at the wrong place. As we have
often emphasized "OOo is not equal ODF". Consequently, a standardized
set of icons for ODF should be specified and provided by the ODF
Adoption TC at OASIS [1]. Subsequently the ODF Adoption TC would
recommend the use of this icon set to the implementers and later measure
the success of its work.
The present iconset has been created by the art team at Sun and is
already integrated in StarOffice 9.2. Integration in OOo has been hold
back (probably until OOo 3.3) to coordinate with the project while in
the meantime contact to OASIS has been searched.
In my eyes this should have been coordinated before - and I read some
of the comments here and on other lists, that there are several
backdrafts in the present icons that should be handled before the
request to define them as officially approved OASIS iconset.
BTW, everybody is welcome even encouraged to send comments to OASIS TCs,
for the ODF Adoption TC, you find the how-to here:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/comments/index.php?wg_abbrev=odf-adoption
I thought about it, but up to now I hoped OOo would be able to find an
internal solution rather to move our different opinions outside the project.
Reading Louis' posting on the ODF adoption list [1] I'm not really sure
if this approach is the right one - he wrote that these icons are going
to be implemented in OOo unmodified (at least without additional OOo
symbols and colors).
Personal remark: I would strongly prefer standardized icon sets for any
file format. IMHO the clear type recognition should be the main priority
for ease of use.
As mentioned before: because different applications provide different
actions to one file format (one is viewer, others are meant to modify
the file), I'd like to add an area in the icons that shows a symbol or
graphical element of the standard application opening the file.
Likely it would also be good to add another graphical element that
indicates the action after opening.
You mean: read or modify?
I understand this approach. An app independent symbol for modification
("write access") comes to my mind.
This doesn't address the point of different modification facilities by
different applications.
[...] The desktop projects are creating
their icon sets to guarantee a common artwork for their product.
Distributors often change it, because of a similar idea. Applications
often change the icons too, as in the Lotus Symphony example, likely
with the intention to provide also a common look and feel for their
product portfolio. Now we are discussing the idea to provide the icons
depending on the file format. I guess all the parties mentioned here
also follow their concepts due to certain (e.g. business) interests,
probably we are heading towards complicated discussions with lot of
parties involved. ;-)
That's my point: Even within OOo there is no common agreement on the
present icon set.
It would be much better to provide icons with certain areas:
- ODF symbol
- document type symbol
- appication symbol (manipulation/read-only)
This would allow the desktop project to adopt the ODF branding without
losing the possibility to implement in their icon styles.
But even this is a marketing topic, I'd ask you to join
[email protected], because the i-team wants this list to be the
main ODF icon discussion list.
Best regards
Bernhard
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