Hi Clytie, all,

Clytie Siddall  wrote:
> 
> On 21/01/2007, at 10:00 AM, eric b wrote:
> > Bernhard Dippold wrote:
> >> So we'll have to define an iconset (not only for the UI, but as  
> >> application and document icons too), that can be used with minor  
> >> modifications on Mac OS X, different Linux distributions and  
> >> Windows (at least XP and Vista). And on all these platforms the  
> >> icons should look as if they had been specifically designed for  
> >> that platform.
> >
> > I think this point should be discussed more, because this is  
> > extremely important, and we need more opinions, mainly from simple  
> > users.
> 
> The difficulty is that OpenOffice.org iconsets are aimed at Windows  
> users:
> ___
> The Galaxy Design

The difficulty is that OpenOffice.org is aiming at many different platforms.

My concern is that we lose visual identity if we start to use different icons 
on different platforms.

If a user recognizes a program as OpenOffice.org on a platform she didn't think 
of before and starts communicating about that fact, then we have the marketing 
impact we (at least I) want to achieve by creating a visual identity. 

If on the other hand a Windows user sees OOo on a Mac or a Linux distribution 
with different icons (there are already different iconsets for Gnome and KDE, 
IIRC) there are three possibilities to react:

1) "Oh - They changed the icons! Looks good :-)"

2) "Different icons? Do they have differences inside the program as well? What 
about portability?"

3) "Nice icons, but whatever this application may be, I'll stay with 
OpenOffice.org"

Of course the best reaction is 1), but the next question will be: "Why don't 
they use these icons on Windows, too?"

Option 2) and 3) are quite bad results if we look at spreading OpenOffice.org 
by every possibility we have.

So what we need is an iconset that
- gives Windows users the symbols they know 
- adds an Aqua / Tango / Galaxy / whatever style to the icons that can be 
integrated in different platforms/GUIs with only minor changes, so the general 
impression stays the same whether you see OpenOffice.org on Mac, Linux or 
Windows.

I know that this task is not trivial, but it can be achieved, if we find 
contributors from all the different places.

Windows users don't need an "oldish" style, Mac and Linux users don't need 
different symbols only because they are different from Windows.

What we have, is a platform independent office suite. Let's have platform 
independent (at least for the general impression) icons too.

Best regards

Bernhard

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