On Mon, 2006-02-27 at 14:33 +1100, Daniel Kasak wrote: > Ross Johnson wrote: > > I know there have been a (very) few adverse comments in the user lists > > about the previous icons, > Well then ... > Let me be amongst the 1st to complain :)
Congratulations :) > The current ( 2.0.1 ) icons make OOo look like a pre- Windows 95 > application. I have had *many* complaints from users - some of them > attacking the appearance directly, and others attacking it in a > roundabout kind of way ( vague suggestions that it's dodgy 10-year old > abandoned freeware spring to memory ). I am sure that if there were a > *decent* icon set, it would change the way a large number of people view > OOo. I haven't seen the new icons, but I find it hard to believe they > are a step backwards. My hat is off to icon designers everywhere. They're an incredibly creative bunch. The ingenuity that goes into icon design, while keeping to all of the technical UI design and graphic theme constraints is amazing. There are several hundred icons in OOo and it's no small task. I was merely comparing the two sets before me, without suggesting that the whole lot be scrapped. I've since learnt (see link at end) that the two sets are the OOo Default set (earlier) and the Ximian Industrial set (new and consistent with Gnome 2). The Industrial set is well named. It has subdued colours, which provides fewer ways for the designer to provide cues or clues. The lower contrast makes it more difficult to distinguish shape within the icon itself. And they can't simply be duplicated and given subdued grey tones to indicate disabled state. First example: The Gallery icon is, I think, meant to be a picture of a human in a landscape scene being placed on a page. The picture has a blue sky and a human figure in the foreground wearing green. I think there's a (same) green mountain in the background. I can barely make it out using the large sized icons. That is, I can't readily recognise it as a picture. It's a dark rectangular 'something' with a page behind it. Second example: I genuinely mistook the new Draw icons with greyed out (disabled) icons. Then I realised that the disabled icons are represented only by what looks like the icon mask pattern, which gives no interior detail ( it's important to be able to recognise icons even when disabled - so that you know what functions are disabled - I have to use other cues such as relative position on the toolbar to work out what they are). There's no reason that these icons can't have a (subdued) colour fill. Another example: The Navigator icon is now a four pointed 'star'. Where this emblem is used as an adjunct to other icons to indicate a navigational aspect, the 'star' is much smaller and looks like a plus sign - which is added to the mouse cursor when performing a copy&paste. The clue is the 'yellow' colour, but subconsciously, I seem to give shape a higher priority to colour when recognising and interpreting things. I think that's not uncommon. I had to change to using the large size icons to be able to work with the Industrial set. I think it's instructive that I didn't have these problems with the Default set at the small size. None of the comments above relate to 'trendy' or 'cool' or 'artistic' qualities. Nothing other than plain usability. They are objective opinions only as far as I can independently analyse my own experience and I make them in the hope that they might be useful. > Having said that, I understand the issues you raise re: the > documentation project ... and also the point on changing the look & feel > in a minor version release. This change at a *minor* version update would possibly be acceptable, but *micro* version update is being a little too impatient. Sure, add it, but let users turn it on if they want to play with it, but I think the default look and feel should be left alone for the moment. > Anyway, I was under the impression that someone was working on adding > support for switching the icon-set at runtime. Or was I mistaken? I was pointed to a recent document (thanks J King) on the OOo site that confirms your impression. Here it is: http://specs.openoffice.org/ui_in_general/icons/icon-theme-switching.sxw This is new work and I'm still surprised that it's appearing in a micro version update. One of the goals is to use icons from the users chosen desktop theme. Not sure how that will work where the desktop theme doesn't include all the icons. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
