Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 16 19:40, Andy Koppe wrote: On 16 August 2011 15:31, Corinna Vinschen wrote: I don't have an original other that what Warren sent: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-noshadow-rasterized.xcf http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-for-small-composites.xcf Everything I did with the C I did from there. Sorry, I meant the image before scaling, but including your changes. I don't have that, sorry. I did everything on the fly and created the icon set from the aforementioned files. Typically I created the grey strokes by lowering the luminiscence to -20, -30, -40, but I can't tell which size got exactly which value. Apart from that, I'm quite happy with the icons as they are. Any further change would be very small and barely visible. I don't think it's worth the effort. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/17/2011 11:46 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 16 13:28, Warren Young wrote: The hippo model is free in the same way most fonts are free: I can't legally give you copies of the mesh and textures, but I can produce as many pixels as I'd like using it, and donate those pixels to an open source software project. See section 4 in the DAZ content EULA: http://www.daz3d.com/sections/aboutus/eula/EULA_Content.pdf Hmm. That's not exactly what I understand as free or open license. The paragraph 4 doesn't sound good to me. In fact, I removed all traces of the boxed hippo from my machines after reading that. Well, it seems clear that the 3D mesh is not libre at all, nor gratis. However, 2D images created FROM the 3D mesh appear themselves to be gratis at the least, and maybe libre *enough*, since the paragraph related to them is concerned solely with the ability to (re)extract the 3D mesh. Otherwise, you're allowed to do whatever you want with the 2D renders: You may (i) access, use, copy and modify the 3-D Models stored on such computers at such single location in the creation and presentation of animations and renderings which may require runtime access to the 3-D Model(s), and (ii) incorporate two dimensional images (including two dimensional images that simulate motion of three dimensional objects) derived from the 3-D Model(s) in other works and publish, market, distribute, transfer, sell or sublicense such combined works; provided that you may not in any case: (a) separately publish, market, distribute, transfer, sell or sublicense any 3-D Model(s) or any part thereof; or (b) publish, market, distribute, transfer, sell or sublicense renderings, animations, software applications, data or any other product from which any original 3-D Model(s), or any part thereof, or any substantially similar version of the original 3-D Model(s) can be separately exported, extracted, or de-compiled into any re-distributable form or format. Subject to the foregoing limitations, and the rights, if any, of third parties in or to the objects represented by the 3-D Model(s), you may copy, distribute, and/or sell your animations and renderings derived from the 3-D Model(s). All other rights with respect to the 3-D Model(s) and their use are reserved to DAZ3D (and its licensors). cardboard box: no issues. The recycle icon on the box's front is like the hippo model: I can't give you the vectors, but anyone with a dingbat font installed probably has a direct substitute on hand. I suppose it would be legal to give out the raster texture I made from the vectors. Is there a chance to replace that? Dunno about this. What are the licensing restrictions on the recycle vectors -- are they also DAZ (and thus, 2D rasters are covered according to the license snippet above), or some other source? A raster is a derived work, so would be subject to copyright issues unless specifically allowed, like the DAZ license appears to do w.r.t. 2D renders. That's not really the same. Copyright problems are something we should avoid like the devil avoids holy water. This is lawyer's playfield and I have not enough training to play this game. Therefore I rather not have any of the DAZ art as part of this project. Well, we can always ask redhat-legal about Warren's 2D rendered art, given the DAZ license... Obviously the 3D mesh is Not Free At All, Precious, so we'd need to avoid THAT. But Warren has all the rights and privileges associated with his purchase, so... I really like the 3D box, but I think it would be better to have a 3D Cygwin C hopping out of the box. I can give that a try, too. That would be cool But dang it, I *like* the angry hippo. :) Yeah, but the potential price is too high. Before tossing the whole idea, I'd rather get an expert opinion if one is available. To this layman, reading the snippet above, it sure seems like Warren is correct: his 2D renders of #angryhippo are freely redistributable, and because they can't feasibly be used to extract the 3D mesh, there's really no way TO violate the distribution terms above. Now, I'm not sure what license that allows US to slap on OUR derived work...can we really do a CC-by-SA or GPLvN? I dunno... I ask, because I'd consider adding some of the alternate designs to cygicons.dll even if they are not ultimately chosen for setup.exe or the official mintty-cygwin shortcut. But only if they carry a free (copyleft [GPL, CC-by-*, etc] or permissive [MIT, BSD, etc]) license. -- Chuck
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 15 11:52, Warren Young wrote: On 8/12/2011 12:59 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 11 15:06, Warren Young wrote: I haven't forgotten about my attempt, by the way. It's just become a bigger project than anticipated. I guess you're not waiting on me, which is fine. No, no, I'm curious. I present to you now, my magnum opus: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/boxed-hippo.ico Now *that*, my friends, is an angry hippo. Boy, is she pissed. I would be, too, if I had been confined to the box that long. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 15 15:09, Warren Young wrote: On 8/15/2011 1:52 PM, Andy Koppe wrote: On 15 August 2011 18:52, Warren Young wrote: I present to you now, my magnum opus: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/boxed-hippo.ico Now *that*, my friends, is an angry hippo. :) That is rather impressive, and yep, that's not a happy hippo. Is this just for fun or are you proposing this at the setup.exe icon, A bit of both. in which case of course it would need further effort to make it work at small sizes. If this does win out over the current gray box icon, I'd say it should be used as-is for 256 px, and can probably be made legible at 48 px. At smaller sizes, I'd say the hippo will have to be evicted from the box. I'll leave as an open question whether the 32 px and below icons become hippo heads, or empty boxes, or C logos, or... The problem for me is that the Cygwin C is only a sidenote now, and that it lost its color. The C is the central brand, so it should have a matching exposition. Only few users will see the 256x256 version of the icon, most will see the 32x32 or 48x48, and in these cases the simple box with C is clearer afaics. This is posed 3D art, so now that I have the assets, I can re-pose and make new renderings fairly easily. About 90% of the effort of getting here was just bringing all the pieces together. I don't think this replaces the newly finalized C logo on the first setup.exe wizard page. I think the box motif works best for the .exe itself, the thing you click on to start unpacking things. Not so sure about that... http://cygwin.de/angry-hippo-setup.png I just hope the hippo is free art. I really like the 3D box, but I think it would be better to have a 3D Cygwin C hopping out of the box. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 15 20:46, Andy Koppe wrote: On 14 August 2011 12:12, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Your attempts at 16x16, 24x24, and 32x32 definitely look better than mine. Also, somehow I seem to have broken the terminal frame in 32x32. I didn't notice that before, but in direct comparison with your 32x32 it's quite obvious. As for 48x48 and 64x64, it seems the thicker original stroke results in a washed-out looking stroke in the inner part of the C, just below the wedge. Can you get rid of that washed-out look? I see what you mean. I think it's because the scaled-down stroke is less than a pixel wide in theory, but due to its position it ends up being divided between two pixel lines, so you get a two-pixel darkish grey instead of a one-pixel light grey. Fixing this would require redrawing the C at the high resolution in such a way that it maps to whole pixels when scaling down. I'm afraid that's beyond my pay grade though. Warren, if you've got any more spare time to spend on this ... Meanwhile, attached is the same again but with the 48x48 from your current icon, and a 64x64 scaled down from your 256x256, because I didn't like the C in the current 64x64 being bigger in relation to the terminal frame than at the other sizes. The stroke probably is a bit too dark though ... I created a new 64x64 icon with smaller C. Other than that I made a longish comparison of the small 16x16 and 24x24 icons on various backgrounds, and in contrast to what I said above, I think I prefer the slightly darker frames. Please have a look at http://cygwin.de/cygwin-terminal-beveled.ico. I think that should really do it. Maybe a terminal or a setup box with just a green wedge? Hmm, interesting idea. Attempt attached, with wedge-in-terminal instead of the standalone logo at 16x16 and 24x24. I think I prefer the logo though. What? They are cute! I like them a lot. I'd like do the same with the setup icon. I still prefer the logo there because it provides a good connection between the 16x16 window icon and the 32x32 taskbar icon on Vista/7, as the logo is the same in both. Also, the logo is rather well established, whereas the green wedge on its own wouldn't necessarily be recognised as representing Cygwin. I agree. I tried that on the setup boxes and it just didn't look good. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 16 August 2011 10:08, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 15 20:46, Andy Koppe wrote: On 14 August 2011 12:12, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Your attempts at 16x16, 24x24, and 32x32 definitely look better than mine. Also, somehow I seem to have broken the terminal frame in 32x32. I didn't notice that before, but in direct comparison with your 32x32 it's quite obvious. As for 48x48 and 64x64, it seems the thicker original stroke results in a washed-out looking stroke in the inner part of the C, just below the wedge. Can you get rid of that washed-out look? I see what you mean. I think it's because the scaled-down stroke is less than a pixel wide in theory, but due to its position it ends up being divided between two pixel lines, so you get a two-pixel darkish grey instead of a one-pixel light grey. Fixing this would require redrawing the C at the high resolution in such a way that it maps to whole pixels when scaling down. I'm afraid that's beyond my pay grade though. Warren, if you've got any more spare time to spend on this ... Meanwhile, attached is the same again but with the 48x48 from your current icon, and a 64x64 scaled down from your 256x256, because I didn't like the C in the current 64x64 being bigger in relation to the terminal frame than at the other sizes. The stroke probably is a bit too dark though ... I created a new 64x64 icon with smaller C. Other than that I made a longish comparison of the small 16x16 and 24x24 icons on various backgrounds, and in contrast to what I said above, I think I prefer the slightly darker frames. Fair enough. Compared to mine though it looks a bit rougher around the edges when used in a mintty window frame with dark background. In particular, some of the corner pixels stick out and the wedge has more pronounced stepping. (See attached pic.) I wonder whether this is due to resizing algorithm. Can you be bothered to try different scaling algorithms, or send me the orignal so I can have a go with Paint.net (which says it uses supersampling)? Andy compare.png.gz Description: GNU Zip compressed data
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 16 15:16, Andy Koppe wrote: On 16 August 2011 10:08, Corinna Vinschen wrote: I created a new 64x64 icon with smaller C. Other than that I made a longish comparison of the small 16x16 and 24x24 icons on various backgrounds, and in contrast to what I said above, I think I prefer the slightly darker frames. Fair enough. Compared to mine though it looks a bit rougher around the edges when used in a mintty window frame with dark background. In particular, some of the corner pixels stick out and the wedge has more pronounced stepping. (See attached pic.) Sorry, but I really don't see that. Not in that size. Do I need specs? I wonder whether this is due to resizing algorithm. Can you be bothered to try different scaling algorithms, or send me the orignal so I can have a go with Paint.net (which says it uses supersampling)? I don't have an original other that what Warren sent: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-noshadow-rasterized.xcf http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-for-small-composites.xcf Everything I did with the C I did from there. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/16/2011 1:50 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 15 11:52, Warren Young wrote: Now *that*, my friends, is an angry hippo. Boy, is she pissed. I would be, too, if I had been confined to the box that long. The other way to look at it is that she is about to be unleashed upon the world. Fitting, for a setup program.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 16 August 2011 15:31, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 16 15:16, Andy Koppe wrote: On 16 August 2011 10:08, Corinna Vinschen wrote: I created a new 64x64 icon with smaller C. Other than that I made a longish comparison of the small 16x16 and 24x24 icons on various backgrounds, and in contrast to what I said above, I think I prefer the slightly darker frames. Fair enough. Compared to mine though it looks a bit rougher around the edges when used in a mintty window frame with dark background. In particular, some of the corner pixels stick out and the wedge has more pronounced stepping. (See attached pic.) Sorry, but I really don't see that. Not in that size. Do I need specs? Aliasing is in the eye of the beholder. Or something. ;) I wonder whether this is due to resizing algorithm. Can you be bothered to try different scaling algorithms, or send me the orignal so I can have a go with Paint.net (which says it uses supersampling)? I don't have an original other that what Warren sent: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-noshadow-rasterized.xcf http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-for-small-composites.xcf Everything I did with the C I did from there. Sorry, I meant the image before scaling, but including your changes. I'm not sure I could recreate them exactly (and it would take more time). Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/16/2011 2:35 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On 15 August 2011 18:52, Warren Young wrote: The problem for me is that the Cygwin C is only a sidenote now, and that it lost its color. On purpose. Few cardboard boxes have full-color logos on them. It would be trivial to bring back the color on the wedge. I had to go out of my way to desaturate it for the rendering. I may try that later. While I could lift the box flap enough to let the entire logo show, I think the partial obscuration helps sell the icon's illusion. The human mind is good at filling in missing bits, and gets a reward jolt when it figures out the mini puzzle. Next time you're at a newsstand, observe how many covers have something partially obscuring the title; same reason. In further service of selling the illusion, if I do decide to bring back the green on the wedge, I think I'll still keep it somewhat desaturated, as that's what happens when you print on kraft paper. You rarely see deep black print on a cardboard box. I don't think this replaces the newly finalized C logo on the first setup.exe wizard page. Not so sure about that... http://cygwin.de/angry-hippo-setup.png That works for me, too. I just thought you'd prefer the big C there instead, for branding. Hey, here's a thought: maybe the boxed hippo is a setup.exe Easter egg. Ctrl-RightShift-MiddleClick on a Thursday kind of thing. I just hope the hippo is free art. The licenses and ownership of all the pieces that went into the rendering allow me to provide renders to the project free and clear. The hippo model is free in the same way most fonts are free: I can't legally give you copies of the mesh and textures, but I can produce as many pixels as I'd like using it, and donate those pixels to an open source software project. See section 4 in the DAZ content EULA: http://www.daz3d.com/sections/aboutus/eula/EULA_Content.pdf If you want your own copy of the model, it's inexpensive: http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=4140 One could ask DAZ for a license to the mesh for the project, but I don't see that we really *need* that. Rendered pixels are what we're really after, no? Once we settle on the details, I can make nice high-res renders that would be free for future remixing. The program you need to pose the model is free-as-in-beer for now: http://www.daz3d.com/i/software/daz_studio It will go up to $50 soon, but DAZ says they'll be releasing a light version that may suit concurrently. (Reference: http://goo.gl/auQsp) (If you have any interest in playing with 3D, by the way, it's worth spending an evening playing with DAZ Studio. Play with Google SketchUp, too. Continue to ignore Blender. :) ) If someone wants it, I can give out the DAZ Studio pose preset for the hippo. With it, a single click will pose the model the way I did for my render. I made the cardboard box model, and will give it to anyone who asks. The cardboard texture is a heavily-hacked version of this photo: http://flic.kr/p/5EYA5Y My version evens out the lighting and removes the distortion in order to make it a seamless texture. I recolored it as part of that process. The original is licensed CC-by 2.0. My read of the license is that I can probably give out my version, since it's different enough to qualify as remixed art. Attribution shouldn't be a problem, since the photographer disclaims the need for it on the photo's Flickr page. (You're being attributed here and now, Jacob Gube!) The recycle icon on the box's front is like the hippo model: I can't give you the vectors, but anyone with a dingbat font installed probably has a direct substitute on hand. I suppose it would be legal to give out the raster texture I made from the vectors. So, bottom line, yes, some non-free software and non-free assets went into this composition. But if you're still feeling your RMS senses tingling, ask yourself this: if I had managed to photograph this scene instead, would you be insisting that I provide[*] copies of my camera, the box, and the hippo before you could use the photo? [*] For a reasonable shipping charge as provided under section 1 of the GPL v3, of course, insofar as shipping a hippo is reasonable. I really like the 3D box, but I think it would be better to have a 3D Cygwin C hopping out of the box. I can give that a try, too. But dang it, I *like* the angry hippo. :) Maybe the box art stays the same, and both a hippo *and* a beveled Cygwin logo are flying out of it...h...
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/12/2011 3:12 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Turns out, 256 is too big for the splash screen. Looking for a nice size, I found that 1064, the size of the rasterized original icon, dived by 7 is 152, which looks like the ideal size for the dialog icon. So I added a 152x152 icon to cygwin.ico, and made it the first icon in the set. Here's the result: http://cygwin.de/cygwin-standalone-beveled.ico Two examples: Classic Windows style:http://cygwin.de/splash-new-1.png Windows 7 non-Aero style: http://cygwin.de/splash-new-2.png Mostly delicious, Corinna. The hard edges in the original art are causing stair-stepping when doing a direct downsample, though. (Look at the pointy bits.) By blurring the high-res version and then downsampling by a non-integral amount, you can get a much smoother result. Here's one at 128 px^2: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/128-smooth.png If you're really set on 152 px^2, here's that, too: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/152-smooth.png If you want yet a different size, the procedure is: - merge all layers (don't flatten; keep transparency) - Gaussian blur, 2 px - bilinear resize
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/14/2011 5:16 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 14 09:18, Andy Koppe wrote: On 27 July 2011 18:30, Warren Young wrote: - Do we need more sizes? I've seen reference to odd sizes like 64x64 and 96x96, but surely we can trust Vista+ to scale the 256x256 to these sizes without needing hand-tweaked versions? Picking up on an old point here. As Warren suggests, the 64x64 doesn't actually seem to be used if 256x256 is present. For example, when setting the desktop icon size to large, a downscaled 256x256 is used. Shall we drop the 64x64s for a bit of a size saving (particularly as they're in BMP rather than PNG format)? You're saving 12K or so. Given that we already have the icons, is it worth it to delete them for just a few K? Are you calculating the setup.exe size delta after upx, or are you looking at the .ico file? upx should provide similar benefit as Vista PNG icons, as compared to standard BMP style icons. My reason for asking if we can skip the other sizes was more a matter of removing unnecessary work than saving single-digit KB in the binary. (I tried upx on cygicons-0.dll, by the way, but it apparently broke something. On trying to use my compressed version to supply an icon for a shortcut, Windows complains it doesn't contain any icons. *shrug*)
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/15/2011 10:33 AM, Warren Young wrote: The hard edges in the original art are causing stair-stepping when doing a direct downsample, though. (Look at the pointy bits.) By blurring the high-res version and then downsampling by a non-integral amount, you can get a much smoother result. This is only the case if the downsample operation used by GIMP, when d/s by an integral amount, is to simply pick every Nth pixel. That's very fast -- but is not the correct operation (I'd posit a GIMP bug, in fact). Sampling theory says a downsample SHOULD be preceded, automatically, by a low-pass filter (blurring) operation of a specific type and, er, radius for lack of a better word. (IOW, GIMP /should/ be doing this blur FOR you, automatically). There's lots of theory behind this, to select the proper kind of filter (gaussian is not correct -- but is probably a good enough approximation) and its 'radius' (which should scale with the downsampling factor). Since GIMP is apparently not doing that, then yes -- you need to apply a blurring filter yourself, before using GIMP's braindead 'pick every Nth pixel' version of downsampling. -- Chuck
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 15 08:33, Warren Young wrote: On 8/12/2011 3:12 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Turns out, 256 is too big for the splash screen. Looking for a nice size, I found that 1064, the size of the rasterized original icon, dived by 7 is 152, which looks like the ideal size for the dialog icon. So I added a 152x152 icon to cygwin.ico, and made it the first icon in the set. Here's the result: http://cygwin.de/cygwin-standalone-beveled.ico Two examples: Classic Windows style:http://cygwin.de/splash-new-1.png Windows 7 non-Aero style: http://cygwin.de/splash-new-2.png Mostly delicious, Corinna. The hard edges in the original art are causing stair-stepping when doing a direct downsample, though. (Look at the pointy bits.) By blurring the high-res version and then downsampling by a non-integral amount, you can get a much smoother result. Here's one at 128 px^2: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/128-smooth.png If you're really set on 152 px^2, here's that, too: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/152-smooth.png If you want yet a different size, the procedure is: - merge all layers (don't flatten; keep transparency) - Gaussian blur, 2 px - bilinear resize Thanks for the tip. I checked in a new 152x152 icon with lightgrey stroke which I blurred before. I resized using the cubic interpolation because I forgot to set it to linear (no bilinear in gimp), but it looks good to me. If you want to have a look, I uploaded it to http://cygwin.de/cygwin-standalone-beveled.ico again. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 15 11:44, Charles Wilson wrote: On 8/15/2011 10:33 AM, Warren Young wrote: The hard edges in the original art are causing stair-stepping when doing a direct downsample, though. (Look at the pointy bits.) By blurring the high-res version and then downsampling by a non-integral amount, you can get a much smoother result. This is only the case if the downsample operation used by GIMP, when d/s by an integral amount, is to simply pick every Nth pixel. That's very fast -- but is not the correct operation (I'd posit a GIMP bug, in fact). Sampling theory says a downsample SHOULD be preceded, automatically, by a low-pass filter (blurring) operation of a specific type and, er, radius for lack of a better word. (IOW, GIMP /should/ be doing this blur FOR you, automatically). There's lots of theory behind this, to select the proper kind of filter (gaussian is not correct -- but is probably a good enough approximation) and its 'radius' (which should scale with the downsampling factor). Since GIMP is apparently not doing that, then yes -- you need to apply a blurring filter yourself, before using GIMP's braindead 'pick every Nth pixel' version of downsampling. Are you talking about recent gimp versions? In my gimp I have the choice of four different interpolation algorithms, None, Linear, Cubic, and Sinc (Lanczos3), whatever each of them means. I guess I just don't want to know in such great detail... Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 15 08:44, Warren Young wrote: On 8/14/2011 5:16 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: You're saving 12K or so. Given that we already have the icons, is it worth it to delete them for just a few K? Are you calculating the setup.exe size delta after upx, or are you looking at the .ico file? Rule of thumb, actually. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/12/2011 12:59 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 11 15:06, Warren Young wrote: I haven't forgotten about my attempt, by the way. It's just become a bigger project than anticipated. I guess you're not waiting on me, which is fine. No, no, I'm curious. I present to you now, my magnum opus: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/boxed-hippo.ico Now *that*, my friends, is an angry hippo.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 15/08/2011 1:52 PM, Warren Young wrote: I present to you now, my magnum opus: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/boxed-hippo.ico Now *that*, my friends, is an angry hippo. When I try to grab the file I get an error stating it's malformed. Chris -- Chris Sutcliffe ir0nh...@gmail.com
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/15/2011 9:44 AM, Charles Wilson wrote: On 8/15/2011 10:33 AM, Warren Young wrote: The hard edges in the original art are causing stair-stepping when doing a direct downsample, though. (Look at the pointy bits.) By blurring the high-res version and then downsampling by a non-integral amount, you can get a much smoother result. This is only the case if the downsample operation used by GIMP, when d/s by an integral amount, is to simply pick every Nth pixel. That's very fast -- but is not the correct operation (I'd posit a GIMP bug, in fact). Perhaps Gimp did that in the past, but what you're describing is now Gimp's None interpolation mode. Both it and Photoshop have better resampling modes, but they all give some stair-stepping with hard diagonal lines if you don't give it a bit of help.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/15/2011 11:58 AM, Chris Sutcliffe wrote: On 15/08/2011 1:52 PM, Warren Young wrote: I present to you now, my magnum opus: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/boxed-hippo.ico Now *that*, my friends, is an angry hippo. When I try to grab the file I get an error stating it's malformed. You're trying to open it in Firefox, which doesn't understand PNG icons. Open it in IE, or download it and open it with Windows' picture viewer. (If you have in the past looked at .ico files in this thread, it probably worked because the file contained at least one standard format icon in the bundle. The one I just posted has no smaller sizes, because I just wanted to get it out there before messing about with making smaller versions.)
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/15/2011 11:59 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Are you talking about recent gimp versions? I wasn't talking specifically about any GIMP version -- I was surmising based on what you guys described as GIMP's behavior. In my gimp I have the choice of four different interpolation algorithms, None, This sounds like the dumb pix every Nth pixel algorithm. It probably devolves to Linear, ...this, when the downsampling factor is not an integer. (linear is implicitly bi-linear when you're dealing with a 2D image). Cubic, and Sinc (Lanczos3), whatever each of them means. I guess I just don't want to know in such great detail... Sinc is the theoretically correct operation, but for obscure reasons can't *really* be implemented in real life, because a /true/ sinc function has infinite extent. So, they probably mean a windowed sinc function...which has other (mostly theoretical) problems (unless the window is not a simple box window, but is instead a hamming, hanning, or certain other windows. But even then, you encounter certain OTHER arcane problems. In practice, I'm sure either cubic or sinc will be fine. Cubic is usually faster. In the end, what *looks good* is what matters here. -- Chuck
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 15 August 2011 18:52, Warren Young wrote: I present to you now, my magnum opus: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/boxed-hippo.ico Now *that*, my friends, is an angry hippo. :) That is rather impressive, and yep, that's not a happy hippo. Is this just for fun or are you proposing this at the setup.exe icon, in which case of course it would need further effort to make it work at small sizes. Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/15/2011 1:52 PM, Andy Koppe wrote: On 15 August 2011 18:52, Warren Young wrote: I present to you now, my magnum opus: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/boxed-hippo.ico Now *that*, my friends, is an angry hippo. :) That is rather impressive, and yep, that's not a happy hippo. Is this just for fun or are you proposing this at the setup.exe icon, A bit of both. in which case of course it would need further effort to make it work at small sizes. If this does win out over the current gray box icon, I'd say it should be used as-is for 256 px, and can probably be made legible at 48 px. At smaller sizes, I'd say the hippo will have to be evicted from the box. I'll leave as an open question whether the 32 px and below icons become hippo heads, or empty boxes, or C logos, or... This is posed 3D art, so now that I have the assets, I can re-pose and make new renderings fairly easily. About 90% of the effort of getting here was just bringing all the pieces together. I don't think this replaces the newly finalized C logo on the first setup.exe wizard page. I think the box motif works best for the .exe itself, the thing you click on to start unpacking things.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 27 July 2011 18:30, Warren Young wrote: - Do we need more sizes? I've seen reference to odd sizes like 64x64 and 96x96, but surely we can trust Vista+ to scale the 256x256 to these sizes without needing hand-tweaked versions? Picking up on an old point here. As Warren suggests, the 64x64 doesn't actually seem to be used if 256x256 is present. For example, when setting the desktop icon size to large, a downscaled 256x256 is used. Shall we drop the 64x64s for a bit of a size saving (particularly as they're in BMP rather than PNG format)? Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 13 21:35, Andy Koppe wrote: On 13 August 2011 08:58, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 12 20:37, Andy Koppe wrote: There's no rush. Even if I check in the current icons to the setup repository, we're not quite finished anyway. Andy was trying to take another stab at the smaller icon sizes 24x24 and 16x16. I hope to get 'round to this this weekend. I'm looking forward. I have a hard time to see how you can get a recognizable result at 16x16. I wasn't going to attempt that. (I now tried it anyway, and the result indeed isn't pretty.) No, what I was going to try was using Warren's bevelled Cygwin logo with the wider stroke to create the standalone logo at 16 and 24 and the logo-in-terminal at 32, 48, and 64. Resulting cygwin-terminal.ico attached, with the 256x256 taken from the current one. I think it's an improvement, particularly at 32x32. Your attempts at 16x16, 24x24, and 32x32 definitely look better than mine. Also, somehow I seem to have broken the terminal frame in 32x32. I didn't notice that before, but in direct comparison with your 32x32 it's quite obvious. As for 48x48 and 64x64, it seems the thicker original stroke results in a washed-out looking stroke in the inner part of the C, just below the wedge. Can you get rid of that washed-out look? If yes, I just take all of them. Maybe a terminal or a setup box with just a green wedge? Hmm, interesting idea. Attempt attached, with wedge-in-terminal instead of the standalone logo at 16x16 and 24x24. I think I prefer the logo though. What? They a cute! I like them a lot. I'd like do the same with the setup icon. I think it would be best to do that as concurrently as possible, including the removal of the mintty postinstall and preremove scripts for creating and removing the 'mintty' start menu entry. That's to avoid an intermediate phase where the mintty entry appears in people's start menus without them asking for it, only for it to disappear again soon after. ACK On second thoughts, the move of mintty to the Base category (but not the removal of the postinstall/preremove scripts) should probably be done a day before uploading the new setup.exe, to make sure it's got to the mirrors before setup.exe starts depending on it. Still ACK. http://mintty.googlecode.com/svn/tags/1.0.1-2/cygport/setup.hint Erm... do you still need the dependency to cygutils? No, thanks for spotting that. And actually the bash dependency isn't needed anymore either, following the removal of the postinstall/preremove scripts. Hence I dropped the 'requires' line completely (after checking that there are other packages without a 'requires' line). Yup, makes sense. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 14 09:18, Andy Koppe wrote: On 27 July 2011 18:30, Warren Young wrote: - Do we need more sizes? I've seen reference to odd sizes like 64x64 and 96x96, but surely we can trust Vista+ to scale the 256x256 to these sizes without needing hand-tweaked versions? Picking up on an old point here. As Warren suggests, the 64x64 doesn't actually seem to be used if 256x256 is present. For example, when setting the desktop icon size to large, a downscaled 256x256 is used. Shall we drop the 64x64s for a bit of a size saving (particularly as they're in BMP rather than PNG format)? You're saving 12K or so. Given that we already have the icons, is it worth it to delete them for just a few K? Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 12 20:37, Andy Koppe wrote: On 12 August 2011 07:59, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 11 15:06, Warren Young wrote: I haven't forgotten about my attempt, by the way. It's just become a bigger project than anticipated. I guess you're not waiting on me, which is fine. No, no, I'm curious. There's no rush. Even if I check in the current icons to the setup repository, we're not quite finished anyway. Andy was trying to take another stab at the smaller icon sizes 24x24 and 16x16. I hope to get 'round to this this weekend. I'm looking forward. I have a hard time to see how you can get a recognizable result at 16x16. Maybe a terminal or a setup box with just a green wedge? Then we must move mintty to Base, then we have to release setup. I think it would be best to do that as concurrently as possible, including the removal of the mintty postinstall and preremove scripts for creating and removing the 'mintty' start menu entry. That's to avoid an intermediate phase where the mintty entry appears in people's start menus without them asking for it, only for it to disappear again soon after. ACK In preparation for that, I've repackaged mintty without those scripts: http://mintty.googlecode.com/files/mintty-1.0.1-2.tar.bz2 http://mintty.googlecode.com/files/mintty-1.0.1-2-src.tar.bz2 And here's a setup.hint with added Base category: http://mintty.googlecode.com/svn/tags/1.0.1-2/cygport/setup.hint Erm... do you still need the dependency to cygutils? I thought this is only necessary to install a mintty icon, but now that one is for free anyway... Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 11 15:06, Warren Young wrote: On 8/11/2011 4:38 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: New incarnation uploaded. Same URL. Is that better? Yes, thanks. I didn't feel up to the task to resize the stroke, btw., so I just made it slightly darker before resizing. This seems to have to do the trick. I haven't forgotten about my attempt, by the way. It's just become a bigger project than anticipated. I guess you're not waiting on me, which is fine. No, no, I'm curious. There's no rush. Even if I check in the current icons to the setup repository, we're not quite finished anyway. Andy was trying to take another stab at the smaller icon sizes 24x24 and 16x16. Then we must move mintty to Base, then we have to release setup. Oh, and, I'd still *love* to use the 256x256 setup icon in the splash screen dialog, if I'd only know how to do that. For now the important thing is that we have a nice icon set, thanks to you and Andy for the artwork, and the code in setup to use them. Changes to the icons are still possible. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 12 08:59, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Oh, and, I'd still *love* to use the 256x256 setup icon in the splash screen dialog, if I'd only know how to do that. Got it! If you specify SS_REALSIZEIMAGE in the ICON control statement, then the dialog uses the original size of the icon, rather than to resize it to something small. If the icon is an icon set, it uses the first icon in the set. Turns out, 256 is too big for the splash screen. Looking for a nice size, I found that 1064, the size of the rasterized original icon, dived by 7 is 152, which looks like the ideal size for the dialog icon. So I added a 152x152 icon to cygwin.ico, and made it the first icon in the set. Here's the result: http://cygwin.de/cygwin-standalone-beveled.ico Two examples: Classic Windows style:http://cygwin.de/splash-new-1.png Windows 7 non-Aero style: http://cygwin.de/splash-new-2.png Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 12 August 2011 07:59, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 11 15:06, Warren Young wrote: On 8/11/2011 4:38 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: New incarnation uploaded. Same URL. Is that better? Yes, thanks. I didn't feel up to the task to resize the stroke, btw., so I just made it slightly darker before resizing. This seems to have to do the trick. I haven't forgotten about my attempt, by the way. It's just become a bigger project than anticipated. I guess you're not waiting on me, which is fine. No, no, I'm curious. There's no rush. Even if I check in the current icons to the setup repository, we're not quite finished anyway. Andy was trying to take another stab at the smaller icon sizes 24x24 and 16x16. I hope to get 'round to this this weekend. Then we must move mintty to Base, then we have to release setup. I think it would be best to do that as concurrently as possible, including the removal of the mintty postinstall and preremove scripts for creating and removing the 'mintty' start menu entry. That's to avoid an intermediate phase where the mintty entry appears in people's start menus without them asking for it, only for it to disappear again soon after. In preparation for that, I've repackaged mintty without those scripts: http://mintty.googlecode.com/files/mintty-1.0.1-2.tar.bz2 http://mintty.googlecode.com/files/mintty-1.0.1-2-src.tar.bz2 And here's a setup.hint with added Base category: http://mintty.googlecode.com/svn/tags/1.0.1-2/cygport/setup.hint Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 12 August 2011 10:12, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 12 08:59, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Oh, and, I'd still *love* to use the 256x256 setup icon in the splash screen dialog, if I'd only know how to do that. Got it! If you specify SS_REALSIZEIMAGE in the ICON control statement, then the dialog uses the original size of the icon, rather than to resize it to something small. If the icon is an icon set, it uses the first icon in the set. Turns out, 256 is too big for the splash screen. Looking for a nice size, I found that 1064, the size of the rasterized original icon, dived by 7 is 152, which looks like the ideal size for the dialog icon. So I added a 152x152 icon to cygwin.ico, and made it the first icon in the set. Here's the result: http://cygwin.de/cygwin-standalone-beveled.ico Two examples: Classic Windows style: http://cygwin.de/splash-new-1.png Windows 7 non-Aero style: http://cygwin.de/splash-new-2.png Spiffy! Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/11/2011 4:38 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: New incarnation uploaded. Same URL. Is that better? Yes, thanks. I haven't forgotten about my attempt, by the way. It's just become a bigger project than anticipated. I guess you're not waiting on me, which is fine.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/9/2011 1:25 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Erm... say that again? Here's where you're losing me. I don't even know how to make the stroke thicker unless it would be a big, square block. Elaborating on steps I gave a few messages up the thread: - enlarge the canvas to make room (Image Canvas Size) - right click stroke layer in Layers panel, Alpha to Selection menu item - Select Grow - fill selection with stroke color (Edit Fill with BG Color) Voila, the stroke is now thicker. But never mind that. Here's a re-spin of the logo, with the strokes thickened and the wedge shadow reduced again. It looks rotten at full size, but it's just what you need for direct resizing down to 32 px and smaller: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-for-small-composites.xcf Here's what you get when you resize the C-on-terminal with this thicker stroke: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/terminal-with-c-aa-32.png Want the stroke even whiter? Okay, so thicken the stroke some more before resizing.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 10 02:47, Warren Young wrote: On 8/9/2011 1:25 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Erm... say that again? Here's where you're losing me. I don't even know how to make the stroke thicker unless it would be a big, square block. Elaborating on steps I gave a few messages up the thread: - enlarge the canvas to make room (Image Canvas Size) - right click stroke layer in Layers panel, Alpha to Selection menu item - Select Grow - fill selection with stroke color (Edit Fill with BG Color) Voila, the stroke is now thicker. But never mind that. Here's a re-spin of the logo, with the strokes thickened and the wedge shadow reduced again. It looks rotten at full size, but it's just what you need for direct resizing down to 32 px and smaller: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-for-small-composites.xcf Here's what you get when you resize the C-on-terminal with this thicker stroke: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/terminal-with-c-aa-32.png That looks excellent, IMHO. Can I just grab it for the official 32x32 terminal icon? There's no reason I should duplicate the work, right? ;) Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 10 02:47, Warren Young wrote: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/terminal-with-c-aa-32.png That's http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/mintty-icon/terminal-with-c-aa-32.png btw. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 10 12:07, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 10 02:47, Warren Young wrote: On 8/9/2011 1:25 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Erm... say that again? Here's where you're losing me. I don't even know how to make the stroke thicker unless it would be a big, square block. Elaborating on steps I gave a few messages up the thread: - enlarge the canvas to make room (Image Canvas Size) - right click stroke layer in Layers panel, Alpha to Selection menu item - Select Grow - fill selection with stroke color (Edit Fill with BG Color) Voila, the stroke is now thicker. But never mind that. Here's a re-spin of the logo, with the strokes thickened and the wedge shadow reduced again. It looks rotten at full size, but it's just what you need for direct resizing down to 32 px and smaller: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-for-small-composites.xcf Here's what you get when you resize the C-on-terminal with this thicker stroke: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/terminal-with-c-aa-32.png That looks excellent, IMHO. Can I just grab it for the official 32x32 terminal icon? There's no reason I should duplicate the work, right? ;) Here's my new icon set for the setup icon using your above C for midgets in the 32x32 setup icon: http://cygwin.de/cygwin-setup-beveled.ico That's better, isn't it? Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/10/2011 4:23 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 10 12:07, Corinna Vinschen wrote: That looks excellent, IMHO. Can I just grab it for the official 32x32 terminal icon? There's no reason I should duplicate the work, right? ;) Thanks. I jumped into this icon project to contribute, so, ja. :) Here's my new icon set for the setup icon using your above C for midgets in the 32x32 setup icon: http://cygwin.de/cygwin-setup-beveled.ico That's better, isn't it? Yes, thanks. The next size up, the second in the set, could use similar treatment. You might need to generate your own logo, if the strokes in the new logo version are too heavy and the original ones too light. The widths are 20 px for the C and 8 px for the wedge in my original .xcf logo, and double that in the new beveled-for-small-composites.xcf one.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 8 16:37, Warren Young wrote: On 8/8/2011 2:45 PM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 8 10:57, Warren Young wrote: Did you figure out your problem seeing the 256 px icon? I'm not sure what problem you mean. I can see the 256x256 icon just fine. I was half-remembering this message: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.os.cygwin.applications/22298 So, did you fix it, and if not, does reordering so the 256 px one is first help? Uh, *that* problem. No, nothing helped. For testing I created icon files with only one icon, 256x256 and 64x64, but whatever I gave the dialog to feed upon, it always ended up as a 48x48 icon. Either it is a restriction in this kind of dialog, or there's a bug in windres. Or there's a trick I don't know about. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 8 16:28, Warren Young wrote: On 8/8/2011 2:43 PM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: If you have a way to create a C which is not handdrawn *and* stands out, I would very much like to see it. That's why I quoted Andy: increasing the stroke width can help. By starting with a much thicker outer stroke, you end up with a brighter yet still AA'd outline. You can also play with (x, y) placement and the sampling algorithm. An 8 px white stroke on black scaled 256:32 (8x) will not necessarily end up a single 1 px white stroke on black. Given a case where that happens, then shifting the line 4 px from that position, downsampling can give you two 50% gray lines side by side if the algorithm interprets the source image as having half the line on one side of the pixel boundary and half on the other. Then if you leave the line where it is, 4 px off optimal for one algorithm but use a different sampling algorithm, you might get good results again. Erm... say that again? Here's where you're losing me. I don't even know how to make the stroke thicker unless it would be a big, square block. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 9 09:17, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 8 16:37, Warren Young wrote: On 8/8/2011 2:45 PM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 8 10:57, Warren Young wrote: Did you figure out your problem seeing the 256 px icon? I'm not sure what problem you mean. I can see the 256x256 icon just fine. I was half-remembering this message: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.os.cygwin.applications/22298 So, did you fix it, and if not, does reordering so the 256 px one is first help? Uh, *that* problem. No, nothing helped. For testing I created icon files with only one icon, 256x256 and 64x64, but whatever I gave the dialog to feed upon, it always ended up as a 48x48 icon. Either it is a restriction in this kind of dialog, or there's a bug in windres. Or there's a trick I don't know about. Btw., note the original line in the .rc file: ICON IDI_CYGWIN_SETUP,IDC_SPLASH_ICON,114,114,21,20,WS_GROUP It sets the size of the icon to 21x20. Nevertheless, the icon is displayed as 48x48. Go figure. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/6/2011 11:43 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Makes sense. If the outline needs to be any brighter, it would need to be thickened before scaling down. One way to do this without involving me: - enlarge the canvas to make room - right click stroke layer, alpha to selection - select grow - fill selection with stroke color It doesn't affect the outer glow, but from what you've written, Corinna, that won't matter. You only need to thicken the stroke for the smaller sizes before downsampling. The terminal icon is attached to this mail. Downscaling the C to 18x18 and pasting it into the 32x32 terminal outline was a waste of time. Try compositing the C with the terminal before downsampling. This will allow the C to blend into the background. The smaller C-in-terminal icons in this current version clearly have their borders hand redrawn pixel by pixel. That look is fine when the whole icon is hand-drawn, but it stands out when most of it is antialiased. Thickening the stroke should avoid the need to redraw the border to make it bright and solid enough. You might need to double its thickness, or more. Overall, a minor nit. This is the right path.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/7/2011 4:08 AM, Andy Koppe wrote: the C with a thicker stroke, say twice as thick? (If you think I could easily do that myself, just say so.) So. :) See my reply above.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/6/2011 2:28 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Is that one ok as default Cygwin icon? Works for me. Did you figure out your problem seeing the 256 px icon? Was it just a caching issue? If not, I wondered if reordering the icons in the aggregate .ico file would help, so they're sorted biggest to smallest.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/6/2011 12:27 PM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Now for the setup icon... Here it is. The 32x32 icon is the most tricky one and needed some convincing to look acceptable. I'd make the C smaller in all of them, especially the 32x32. Please point me to the box art. I want to try. I also want to try a pure black C on a recolored kraft brown box. Make it shipping-boxy, power in potentia, yet to be unleashed.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 8 11:10, Warren Young wrote: On 8/6/2011 12:27 PM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Now for the setup icon... Here it is. The 32x32 icon is the most tricky one and needed some convincing to look acceptable. I'd make the C smaller in all of them, especially the 32x32. Please point me to the box art. I want to try. Smaller? I'm surprised. I wouldn't really want them smaller, especially in the 32x32 case, where the C is already so small. But I'm curious. The box art is part of the gnome-icon-theme package(*), the icons are /usr/share/icons/gnome/*/mimetypes/package-x-generic.png. I also want to try a pure black C on a recolored kraft brown box. Make it shipping-boxy, power in potentia, yet to be unleashed. That sounds interesting. Corinna (*) http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/15511208/dir/fedora_14/com/gnome-icon-theme-2.31.0-1.fc14.noarch.rpm.html -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 8 10:42, Warren Young wrote: On 8/6/2011 11:43 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Makes sense. If the outline needs to be any brighter, it would need to be thickened before scaling down. Oops, that's a quote from Andy. One way to do this without involving me: - enlarge the canvas to make room - right click stroke layer, alpha to selection - select grow - fill selection with stroke color It doesn't affect the outer glow, but from what you've written, Corinna, that won't matter. You only need to thicken the stroke for the smaller sizes before downsampling. The terminal icon is attached to this mail. Downscaling the C to 18x18 and pasting it into the 32x32 terminal outline was a waste of time. Try compositing the C with the terminal before downsampling. This will allow the C to blend into the background. The smaller C-in-terminal icons in this current version clearly have their borders hand redrawn pixel by pixel. That look is fine when the whole icon is hand-drawn, but it stands out when most of it is antialiased. That was the idea. It stands out. Every other try to resize and paste in whatever order resulted in a C which was barely visible on the dark background. The 32x32 icon is pretty small, so the inner C must stand out to be visible at all. IMHO. If you have a way to create a C which is not handdrawn *and* stands out, I would very much like to see it. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 8 10:57, Warren Young wrote: On 8/6/2011 2:28 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Is that one ok as default Cygwin icon? Works for me. Did you figure out your problem seeing the 256 px icon? Was it just a caching issue? If not, I wondered if reordering the icons in the aggregate .ico file would help, so they're sorted biggest to smallest. I'm not sure what problem you mean. I can see the 256x256 icon just fine. Which of my mails are you referring to? I lost track due to the number of mails in the thread :} Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/8/2011 2:43 PM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: If you have a way to create a C which is not handdrawn *and* stands out, I would very much like to see it. That's why I quoted Andy: increasing the stroke width can help. By starting with a much thicker outer stroke, you end up with a brighter yet still AA'd outline. You can also play with (x, y) placement and the sampling algorithm. An 8 px white stroke on black scaled 256:32 (8x) will not necessarily end up a single 1 px white stroke on black. Given a case where that happens, then shifting the line 4 px from that position, downsampling can give you two 50% gray lines side by side if the algorithm interprets the source image as having half the line on one side of the pixel boundary and half on the other. Then if you leave the line where it is, 4 px off optimal for one algorithm but use a different sampling algorithm, you might get good results again. This same issue is also why on-screen type hinting is difficult.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/8/2011 2:45 PM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 8 10:57, Warren Young wrote: Did you figure out your problem seeing the 256 px icon? I'm not sure what problem you mean. I can see the 256x256 icon just fine. I was half-remembering this message: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.os.cygwin.applications/22298 So, did you fix it, and if not, does reordering so the 256 px one is first help?
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 6 August 2011 19:27, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 6 19:43, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 6 11:47, Andy Koppe wrote: On 6 August 2011 09:28, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 5 11:35, Warren Young wrote: However, I have made a fully rasterized, layered version compatible with Gimp for those without even Photoshop 6.0: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-noshadow-rasterized.xcf Thank you very much. I created an icon set from there. The fact that everything is layered is cool. You can simply change a single aspect of the picture. What I did: - In general the dark shadow of the wedge became too dark (IMHO) when resizing the image to smaller sizes. The wedge looked pretty asymmetrically when small. So I lightend the shadow quite a bit before scaling it down.cd - For the 256x256 icon I darkened the C stroke a bit, for 48x48 and below I used an entirely white stroke before scaling down. - For the 256x256 icon I kept the dark outer glow, for the smaller sizes I removed it. Makes sense. If the outline needs to be any brighter, it would need to be thickened before scaling down. The 16x16 icon looks blurry when magnified to 800% in gimp, but I'm surprised how good it looks in normal 100%. I agree. Is that one ok as default Cygwin icon? I think so. I'm going to work on the terminal icon based on Andy's blank-terminal icons and this beveled icon next, as well as on a new setup box icon. Looking forward to those. I seem to be in a minority of one regarding the logo-in-terminal approach, so I withdraw my objection to that. The terminal icon is attached to this mail. Downscaling the C to 18x18 and pasting it into the 32x32 terminal outline was a waste of time. For 32x32 I now created a C pixel by pixel so that it looks good on the XP desktop. For 24x24 and 16x16 I used the standalone C from my previous icon set as fallback. Now for the setup icon... Here it is. The 32x32 icon is the most tricky one and needed some convincing to look acceptable. 24x24 and 16x16 are agains the standalone icon. Nice work on both of them. GTG, as far as I'm concerned. I'd quite like to have another go at the small icons though, but that doesn't need to hold up anything. Warren, could you do a version of the C with a thicker stroke, say twice as thick? (If you think I could easily do that myself, just say so.) Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 6 August 2011 09:28, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 5 11:35, Warren Young wrote: On 8/3/2011 11:49 PM, Andy Koppe wrote: Warren's has the advantage of a 256 version and that it's more tweakable assuming he provides the vector version it's presumably based on. Sorry, there is currently no vector version. Effects like bevels and shadows are raster effects. However, based on this: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/SVG_filter_effects it does look like SVG's been extended with the raster effects needed to recreate my beveled icon. I am installing Inkscape now and will try to do that later, perhaps today, perhaps not. In the meanwhile, here's my new beveled Cygwin logo: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-noshadow.psd Changes from the original: - removed the big drop shadow (outer glow still present) - softened lighting on the wedge - dropped outer C stroke from white to a light gray - rebuilt as 1024 px square, not counting the outer glow, for finer editing control This should open in any version of Photoshop going back to the 90s. (v6 and up, I'm guessing.) While I realize not everyone will have even that, I'm providing it because it's based on easy-to-edit procedural effects, rather than flattened raster effects. However, I have made a fully rasterized, layered version compatible with Gimp for those without even Photoshop 6.0: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-noshadow-rasterized.xcf Thank you very much. I created an icon set from there. The fact that everything is layered is cool. You can simply change a single aspect of the picture. What I did: - In general the dark shadow of the wedge became too dark (IMHO) when resizing the image to smaller sizes. The wedge looked pretty asymmetrically when small. So I lightend the shadow quite a bit before scaling it down.cd - For the 256x256 icon I darkened the C stroke a bit, for 48x48 and below I used an entirely white stroke before scaling down. - For the 256x256 icon I kept the dark outer glow, for the smaller sizes I removed it. Makes sense. If the outline needs to be any brighter, it would need to be thickened before scaling down. The 16x16 icon looks blurry when magnified to 800% in gimp, but I'm surprised how good it looks in normal 100%. I agree. Is that one ok as default Cygwin icon? I think so. I'm going to work on the terminal icon based on Andy's blank-terminal icons and this beveled icon next, as well as on a new setup box icon. Looking forward to those. I seem to be in a minority of one regarding the logo-in-terminal approach, so I withdraw my objection to that. Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 4 August 2011 15:29, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 4 09:19, Charles Wilson wrote: On 8/4/2011 4:39 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Sure! I would be more happy with the fatbuttlarry icon if it would be available in a nice 256x256 variation, though. That's really a big plus of Warren's version. Here (well, it's 237x258 but that's nothing that can't be fixed with little GIMP). Nice, thank you. Ditto. Where did you find that? There isn't a vector version of this, is there? I'm asking because that would allow to remove the shadow under the C without impacting the edge of the C which has a bit of a fade-out on it. I realised that I'd used the 24bpp version of cygicons-0.dll,9, which doesn't have the shadow, but only because it doesn't have an alpha channel. Do you know how to convert the green glow around the C to grey, by any chance? Here's what I did, in Paint.net. I very much suspect there are better ways. - Select the green arrow with the rectangular select tool. - Invert the selection, thereby selecting everything but the green arrow. - Go to Adjustments-Hue/Saturation: Turn the hue to -60 (yellow) and the saturation to 200 (maximum). OK. - Adjustments-Black and White. (The point of turning it bright yellow before the Black and White step is to make the resulting grey as light as possible.) Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/5/2011 11:05 AM, Andy Koppe wrote: On 4 August 2011 15:29, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 4 09:19, Charles Wilson wrote: Here (well, it's 237x258 but that's nothing that can't be fixed with little GIMP). Nice, thank you. Ditto. Where did you find that? It's at the same place I got the original windows icon: http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=36393 It's the 'Fedora' download. There isn't a vector version of this, is there? Not that I could see. There's contact info for fatbuttlarry at the link, but it's several years old, so no telling if it is still accurate, or if fbl would respond, or if he still HAS any original vector artwork, or if he'd be willing to share it... (The pentajock link on the page above is dead, so that doesn't bode well) -- Chuck
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/3/2011 11:49 PM, Andy Koppe wrote: Warren's has the advantage of a 256 version and that it's more tweakable assuming he provides the vector version it's presumably based on. Sorry, there is currently no vector version. Effects like bevels and shadows are raster effects. However, based on this: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/SVG_filter_effects it does look like SVG's been extended with the raster effects needed to recreate my beveled icon. I am installing Inkscape now and will try to do that later, perhaps today, perhaps not. In the meanwhile, here's my new beveled Cygwin logo: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-noshadow.psd Changes from the original: - removed the big drop shadow (outer glow still present) - softened lighting on the wedge - dropped outer C stroke from white to a light gray - rebuilt as 1024 px square, not counting the outer glow, for finer editing control This should open in any version of Photoshop going back to the 90s. (v6 and up, I'm guessing.) While I realize not everyone will have even that, I'm providing it because it's based on easy-to-edit procedural effects, rather than flattened raster effects. However, I have made a fully rasterized, layered version compatible with Gimp for those without even Photoshop 6.0: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-noshadow-rasterized.xcf I also made a 256 px .ico, for those who just want to see it in action: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-noshadow.ico
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/4/2011 12:16 PM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 4 13:24, Charles Wilson wrote: On 8/4/2011 10:29 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Nice, thank you. Do you know how to convert the green glow around the C to grey, by any chance? Not...exactly. I think you should be able to use the magic wand selection tool (with appropriate options), and then apply a desaturate or color shift filter to the selected region. But, that's only a guess. I tried that for about 45 minutes. Don't ask to see any results :( In Gimp, you can say Colors Hue-Saturation, then click the radio button next to the green color chip to restrict the adjustment to the greens. Dropping Saturation should then give you the result you want. Avoid the Tragic Wand. It is almost never the right tool for the job. There are whole books on better selection methods: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321441206/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0735712794/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321808231/ Yes, they're all to do with Photoshop, but the principles are the same. In the case of Hue-Saturation, Gimp/PS is computing a mask for you automatically when you restrict it to a color range. When not dealing with simple logo art, you often have to resort to the more advanced techniques in the books I've recommended above.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 5 10:13, Warren Young wrote: On 8/5/2011 9:05 AM, Andy Koppe wrote: Do you know how to convert the green glow around the C to grey, by any chance? Here's what I did, in Paint.net. I very much suspect there are better ways. The right way is to use Levels. Ctrl-L in Photoshop and Paint.NET, Colors Levels in Gimp. In this case, I'd drag down the white point of the input levels to push things toward white, while leaving the dark parts of the image where they are, more or less. You could also try moving the gamma slider, either alone, or in combination with the above to keep the blacks where you want them. I don't understand this. If I do that, the black C and especially the highlights in the C are getting whiter and chunky, while the green frame gets chunky but stays green. So I'm puzzled. If I do that and then desaturize, what have I won, except that the highlights in the C are chunkier? Where's the trick? Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/5/2011 11:50 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: You could also try moving the gamma slider, either alone, or in combination with the above to keep the blacks where you want them. I don't understand this. If I do that, the black C and especially the highlights in the C are getting whiter and chunky, This is due to not having a layered document. The levels move is affecting everything, not just the glow. Lacking a layered document so you can modify the glow in isolation, you're back to needing a good selection to start with. Riffing off the Hue-Saturation tip from the other message, you could take essentially the same path but move the lightness slider in addition to the saturation. Between this and Andy's select wedge then invert selection you should get a good result.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 5 August 2011 18:35, Warren Young wrote: On 8/3/2011 11:49 PM, Andy Koppe wrote: Warren's has the advantage of a 256 version and that it's more tweakable assuming he provides the vector version it's presumably based on. Sorry, there is currently no vector version. Effects like bevels and shadows are raster effects. However, based on this: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/SVG_filter_effects it does look like SVG's been extended with the raster effects needed to recreate my beveled icon. I am installing Inkscape now and will try to do that later, perhaps today, perhaps not. Don't worry too much about that. The below sounds like the Photoshop version should be entirely sufficient. In the meanwhile, here's my new beveled Cygwin logo: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-noshadow.psd Changes from the original: - removed the big drop shadow (outer glow still present) - softened lighting on the wedge - dropped outer C stroke from white to a light gray - rebuilt as 1024 px square, not counting the outer glow, for finer editing control This should open in any version of Photoshop going back to the 90s. (v6 and up, I'm guessing.) While I realize not everyone will have even that, I'm providing it because it's based on easy-to-edit procedural effects, rather than flattened raster effects. However, I have made a fully rasterized, layered version compatible with Gimp for those without even Photoshop 6.0: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-noshadow-rasterized.xcf I also made a 256 px .ico, for those who just want to see it in action: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled-noshadow.ico I like this a lot. Thanks very much for responding so positively to my whinging. Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 5 August 2011 16:57, Charles Wilson wrote: On 8/5/2011 11:05 AM, Andy Koppe wrote: On 4 August 2011 15:29, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 4 09:19, Charles Wilson wrote: Here (well, it's 237x258 but that's nothing that can't be fixed with little GIMP). Nice, thank you. Ditto. Where did you find that? It's at the same place I got the original windows icon: http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=36393 It's the 'Fedora' download. There isn't a vector version of this, is there? Not that I could see. There's contact info for fatbuttlarry at the link, but it's several years old, so no telling if it is still accurate, or if fbl would respond, or if he still HAS any original vector artwork, or if he'd be willing to share it... I sent a request to the email address given there. At least it hasn't yet come back as undeliverable ... Thanks, Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/5/2011 1:08 PM, Andy Koppe wrote: I like this a lot. Thanks very much for responding so positively to my whinging. Let me know if you need to see any other changes. I think a large part of the problem is tl;dr, and the resultant talking past each other. I know it's true for me. I've been taking a passive role since you and Corinna took my ball and ran with it, but don't take that to mean you can't ask me for changes. The main thing I need is concrete requests, such as those that lead to the present changes. I will get back to your comments about the semitransparent Konsole icon edge later. I don't see a fade-out here, no doubt because there's precious little standardization in vector art, SVG notwithstanding. That's one of the reasons I decided to install Inkscape instead of continuing to base my work on SVG art imported into Illustrator then re-exported. I'd bet AI is a lot more powerful, but if it impedes communication... Besides, PS fanboy though I am, AI fanboy I am not. :)
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 4 06:49, Andy Koppe wrote: On 2 August 2011 16:24, Corinna Vinschen wrote: I tried your icons on my desktop and the standalone icon looks good. In the terminal icons the beveled C looks better than the fatbuttlarry C, cleaner, crisper. I think it would be better to stick to one. I don't particularly mind which, in principle anyway. Ok. Warren's has the advantage of a 256 version and that it's more tweakable assuming he provides the vector version it's presumably based on. It does need to lose that shadow though, and have the bottom edge fixed. Also, the bottom half of the green triangle is a bit on the dark side. I agree. I think the dark side of the wedge is a result of the shadowing. It's also easier to distinguish from the dark background, but that's probably just because you used a darker shade of grey for the frame. In the terminal window, a lighter grey really doesn't hurt. It's pretty much the same grey actually (~220), at full size anyway. But the border is thinner and/or partially transparent in larry's. Therefore, when scaling it down, it blends into the background more. Right. In my icons (which somehow nobody cared to comment upon) I tried to use a lighter grey for the C frame for smaller icons. Generally it looks like your C's are a pixel or two smaller, except in the smallest sizes. Gimp shows that you're always leaving a transparent frame of at least one pixel. Any reason for that? Not really. Just seemed a prudent thing to do when cutting it out of the original, but you're right, there's no need for this, and I'd be happy to redo it. Sure! I would be more happy with the fatbuttlarry icon if it would be available in a nice 256x256 variation, though. That's really a big plus of Warren's version. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/4/2011 4:39 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Sure! I would be more happy with the fatbuttlarry icon if it would be available in a nice 256x256 variation, though. That's really a big plus of Warren's version. Here (well, it's 237x258 but that's nothing that can't be fixed with little GIMP). -- Chuck fatbuttlarry-256.tar.gz Description: application/gzip
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 4 09:19, Charles Wilson wrote: On 8/4/2011 4:39 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Sure! I would be more happy with the fatbuttlarry icon if it would be available in a nice 256x256 variation, though. That's really a big plus of Warren's version. Here (well, it's 237x258 but that's nothing that can't be fixed with little GIMP). Nice, thank you. Do you know how to convert the green glow around the C to grey, by any chance? Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/4/2011 10:29 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Nice, thank you. Do you know how to convert the green glow around the C to grey, by any chance? Not...exactly. I think you should be able to use the magic wand selection tool (with appropriate options), and then apply a desaturate or color shift filter to the selected region. But, that's only a guess. -- Chuck
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 4 13:24, Charles Wilson wrote: On 8/4/2011 10:29 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Nice, thank you. Do you know how to convert the green glow around the C to grey, by any chance? Not...exactly. I think you should be able to use the magic wand selection tool (with appropriate options), and then apply a desaturate or color shift filter to the selected region. But, that's only a guess. I tried that for about 45 minutes. Don't ask to see any results :( Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 3 06:54, Andy Koppe wrote: On 2 August 2011 17:06, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 2 11:45, Charles Wilson wrote: On 8/2/2011 11:24 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: I guess we're getting close to the end result now. So, how are you (Andy, Corinna) planning to handle the .ico file(s) themselves? Are you 1. (Andy) planning to put it/them into the mintty executable as resource(s), 2. ship the .ico file(s) in '/' as part of the main cygwin package, as we have long done with cygwin.ico 3. Incorporate it/them into cygicon*.dll as part of the cygutils package or some combination? I'm open to #3, but I'll need provenance and licensing info (see the end of /usr/share/doc/cygutils/cygicons/README ) I would stick to the standard terminal icon for mintty(*), except in the case of the Cygwin Terminal desktop and start menu icons. Sounds good to me. Both files will be installed into / just as today. I thought the desktop and start menu icons would be the same. (Setup.exe's icon might be different.) Right. But even if the terminal uses the terminal C, I think it doesn't hurt to provide the standalone C as well (think brand). Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 2 August 2011 16:24, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 2 15:49, Andy Koppe wrote: On 1 August 2011 21:05, Andy Koppe wrote: On 1 August 2011 09:07, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Jul 31 21:21, Andy Koppe wrote: On 30 July 2011 21:22, Andy Koppe wrote: On 30 July 2011 19:36, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Jul 29 21:29, Andy Koppe wrote: Attached is my take on this, with 64x64, 48x48, 32x32 showing fatbuttlarry's Cygwin symbol inside the Konsole icon, and 16x16 showing the Cygwin symbol only. Not bad, but the green border around the C is too dark to set the C apart from the background. The border needs some light grey which allows to recognize the C. I'm not sure how to do that, but the attached attempt turn up the saturation of the green outline. It also reduces the blurriness of the whole thing a bit. Apparently it's better to convert an SVG to a high-res bitmap and resize that down with a bitmap program such as Paint.net instead of converting the SVG straight to the target bitmap sizes (at least when using InkScape). The two attached icons differ at size 32: cygwin-terminal2.ico has the Cygwin-in-terminal there, whereas cygwin-terminal3.ico has just the Cygwin symbol. Size 32 shows up in the Windows 7 taskbar. Further to those two, here's one with the glowy Cygwin symbol all the way from size 16 to 64. It's a remastered version of the one in cygutils; a bit bigger and with the aforementioned brighter green outline around the C. Thanks. But, hmm. The longer I play with it, the less I like the green glow. It adds an eerie touch to the C Now what's wrong with that? Cygwin - mean and a bit eerie. ;) and it still doesn't set the C really apart on dark backgrounds. I disagree, looking at a desktop with a darkish picture and dark grey taskbar and window borders. I think we should go with a grey outline. I did eventually work out how to turn the outline of fatbuttlarry's icon grey. See attachments. Having used both variants for a while, I agree that a grey outline does look better. I tried your icons on my desktop and the standalone icon looks good. In the terminal icons the beveled C looks better than the fatbuttlarry C, cleaner, crisper. I think it would be better to stick to one. I don't particularly mind which, in principle anyway. Warren's has the advantage of a 256 version and that it's more tweakable assuming he provides the vector version it's presumably based on. It does need to lose that shadow though, and have the bottom edge fixed. Also, the bottom half of the green triangle is a bit on the dark side. It's also easier to distinguish from the dark background, but that's probably just because you used a darker shade of grey for the frame. In the terminal window, a lighter grey really doesn't hurt. It's pretty much the same grey actually (~220), at full size anyway. But the border is thinner and/or partially transparent in larry's. Therefore, when scaling it down, it blends into the background more. Generally it looks like your C's are a pixel or two smaller, except in the smallest sizes. Gimp shows that you're always leaving a transparent frame of at least one pixel. Any reason for that? Not really. Just seemed a prudent thing to do when cutting it out of the original, but you're right, there's no need for this, and I'd be happy to redo it. Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 1 August 2011 21:05, Andy Koppe wrote: On 1 August 2011 09:07, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Jul 31 21:21, Andy Koppe wrote: On 30 July 2011 21:22, Andy Koppe wrote: On 30 July 2011 19:36, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Jul 29 21:29, Andy Koppe wrote: Attached is my take on this, with 64x64, 48x48, 32x32 showing fatbuttlarry's Cygwin symbol inside the Konsole icon, and 16x16 showing the Cygwin symbol only. Not bad, but the green border around the C is too dark to set the C apart from the background. The border needs some light grey which allows to recognize the C. I'm not sure how to do that, but the attached attempt turn up the saturation of the green outline. It also reduces the blurriness of the whole thing a bit. Apparently it's better to convert an SVG to a high-res bitmap and resize that down with a bitmap program such as Paint.net instead of converting the SVG straight to the target bitmap sizes (at least when using InkScape). The two attached icons differ at size 32: cygwin-terminal2.ico has the Cygwin-in-terminal there, whereas cygwin-terminal3.ico has just the Cygwin symbol. Size 32 shows up in the Windows 7 taskbar. Further to those two, here's one with the glowy Cygwin symbol all the way from size 16 to 64. It's a remastered version of the one in cygutils; a bit bigger and with the aforementioned brighter green outline around the C. Thanks. But, hmm. The longer I play with it, the less I like the green glow. It adds an eerie touch to the C Now what's wrong with that? Cygwin - mean and a bit eerie. ;) and it still doesn't set the C really apart on dark backgrounds. I disagree, looking at a desktop with a darkish picture and dark grey taskbar and window borders. I think we should go with a grey outline. I did eventually work out how to turn the outline of fatbuttlarry's icon grey. See attachments. Having used both variants for a while, I agree that a grey outline does look better. Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 2 15:49, Andy Koppe wrote: On 1 August 2011 21:05, Andy Koppe wrote: On 1 August 2011 09:07, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Jul 31 21:21, Andy Koppe wrote: On 30 July 2011 21:22, Andy Koppe wrote: On 30 July 2011 19:36, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Jul 29 21:29, Andy Koppe wrote: Attached is my take on this, with 64x64, 48x48, 32x32 showing fatbuttlarry's Cygwin symbol inside the Konsole icon, and 16x16 showing the Cygwin symbol only. Not bad, but the green border around the C is too dark to set the C apart from the background. The border needs some light grey which allows to recognize the C. I'm not sure how to do that, but the attached attempt turn up the saturation of the green outline. It also reduces the blurriness of the whole thing a bit. Apparently it's better to convert an SVG to a high-res bitmap and resize that down with a bitmap program such as Paint.net instead of converting the SVG straight to the target bitmap sizes (at least when using InkScape). The two attached icons differ at size 32: cygwin-terminal2.ico has the Cygwin-in-terminal there, whereas cygwin-terminal3.ico has just the Cygwin symbol. Size 32 shows up in the Windows 7 taskbar. Further to those two, here's one with the glowy Cygwin symbol all the way from size 16 to 64. It's a remastered version of the one in cygutils; a bit bigger and with the aforementioned brighter green outline around the C. Thanks. But, hmm. The longer I play with it, the less I like the green glow. It adds an eerie touch to the C Now what's wrong with that? Cygwin - mean and a bit eerie. ;) and it still doesn't set the C really apart on dark backgrounds. I disagree, looking at a desktop with a darkish picture and dark grey taskbar and window borders. I think we should go with a grey outline. I did eventually work out how to turn the outline of fatbuttlarry's icon grey. See attachments. Having used both variants for a while, I agree that a grey outline does look better. I tried your icons on my desktop and the standalone icon looks good. In the terminal icons the beveled C looks better than the fatbuttlarry C, cleaner, crisper. It's also easier to distinguish from the dark background, but that's probably just because you used a darker shade of grey for the frame. In the terminal window, a lighter grey really doesn't hurt. Generally it looks like your C's are a pixel or two smaller, except in the smallest sizes. Gimp shows that you're always leaving a transparent frame of at least one pixel. Any reason for that? I guess we're getting close to the end result now. The question is just, should we use fatbuttlarry's bubbly C, or Warrens beveled C? I like both. The beveled C exists in 256x256, too. I like the beveled C better in the terminal frame, but I like the bubbly C better standalone. Maybe we can just use both in this combination? Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 8/2/2011 11:24 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: I guess we're getting close to the end result now. So, how are you (Andy, Corinna) planning to handle the .ico file(s) themselves? Are you 1. (Andy) planning to put it/them into the mintty executable as resource(s), 2. ship the .ico file(s) in '/' as part of the main cygwin package, as we have long done with cygwin.ico 3. Incorporate it/them into cygicon*.dll as part of the cygutils package or some combination? I'm open to #3, but I'll need provenance and licensing info (see the end of /usr/share/doc/cygutils/cygicons/README ) P.S. I've been quiet on the artistic aspects of this discussion 'cause, well, I'm a no-talent hack, and I figured ya'll could do all the bike-shedding without my $0.37 (adjusted for inflation). -- Chuck
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Aug 2 11:45, Charles Wilson wrote: On 8/2/2011 11:24 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: I guess we're getting close to the end result now. So, how are you (Andy, Corinna) planning to handle the .ico file(s) themselves? Are you 1. (Andy) planning to put it/them into the mintty executable as resource(s), 2. ship the .ico file(s) in '/' as part of the main cygwin package, as we have long done with cygwin.ico 3. Incorporate it/them into cygicon*.dll as part of the cygutils package or some combination? I'm open to #3, but I'll need provenance and licensing info (see the end of /usr/share/doc/cygutils/cygicons/README ) I would stick to the standard terminal icon for mintty(*), except in the case of the Cygwin Terminal desktop and start menu icons. Both files will be installed into / just as today. They can (and maybe should) also become part of cygicon DLL. Corinna (*) Well, unless Andy wants to take over the terminal icon with the C in it, but that's entirely his own call. -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 2 August 2011 17:06, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Aug 2 11:45, Charles Wilson wrote: On 8/2/2011 11:24 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: I guess we're getting close to the end result now. So, how are you (Andy, Corinna) planning to handle the .ico file(s) themselves? Are you 1. (Andy) planning to put it/them into the mintty executable as resource(s), 2. ship the .ico file(s) in '/' as part of the main cygwin package, as we have long done with cygwin.ico 3. Incorporate it/them into cygicon*.dll as part of the cygutils package or some combination? I'm open to #3, but I'll need provenance and licensing info (see the end of /usr/share/doc/cygutils/cygicons/README ) I would stick to the standard terminal icon for mintty(*), except in the case of the Cygwin Terminal desktop and start menu icons. Sounds good to me. Both files will be installed into / just as today. I thought the desktop and start menu icons would be the same. (Setup.exe's icon might be different.) Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Jul 31 21:21, Andy Koppe wrote: On 30 July 2011 21:22, Andy Koppe wrote: On 30 July 2011 19:36, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Jul 29 21:29, Andy Koppe wrote: Attached is my take on this, with 64x64, 48x48, 32x32 showing fatbuttlarry's Cygwin symbol inside the Konsole icon, and 16x16 showing the Cygwin symbol only. Not bad, but the green border around the C is too dark to set the C apart from the background. The border needs some light grey which allows to recognize the C. I'm not sure how to do that, but the attached attempt turn up the saturation of the green outline. It also reduces the blurriness of the whole thing a bit. Apparently it's better to convert an SVG to a high-res bitmap and resize that down with a bitmap program such as Paint.net instead of converting the SVG straight to the target bitmap sizes (at least when using InkScape). The two attached icons differ at size 32: cygwin-terminal2.ico has the Cygwin-in-terminal there, whereas cygwin-terminal3.ico has just the Cygwin symbol. Size 32 shows up in the Windows 7 taskbar. Further to those two, here's one with the glowy Cygwin symbol all the way from size 16 to 64. It's a remastered version of the one in cygutils; a bit bigger and with the aforementioned brighter green outline around the C. Thanks. But, hmm. The longer I play with it, the less I like the green glow. It adds an eerie touch to the C and it still doesn't set the C really apart on dark backgrounds. I think we should go with a grey outline. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 29 July 2011 15:11, Warren Young wrote: Here's a version with heavy chiseled bevels and shadows added: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled.ico The bevel depth and style can of course be varied, as can the shadow angle, opacity, etc. If you don't like it but can describe what you'd like better, I'll take a shot at creating it. Could you do that one without the shadow, or perhaps just a small shadow below? That appears to be the done thing elsewhere. Also, Corinna's idea of toning down the edge to light grey seems a good one. Light green might be worth trying as well. Also, does this originate in a vector format, i.e. could you make it available as an SVG? Or otherwise as a hires PNG? (768 seems good because it's divisible by both 256 and 48.) Finally, the white edge line at the bottom seems to be slightly too low, because there are a couple of rough corners there. Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 30 July 2011 21:22, Andy Koppe wrote: On 30 July 2011 19:36, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Jul 29 21:29, Andy Koppe wrote: Attached is my take on this, with 64x64, 48x48, 32x32 showing fatbuttlarry's Cygwin symbol inside the Konsole icon, and 16x16 showing the Cygwin symbol only. Not bad, but the green border around the C is too dark to set the C apart from the background. The border needs some light grey which allows to recognize the C. I'm not sure how to do that, but the attached attempt turn up the saturation of the green outline. It also reduces the blurriness of the whole thing a bit. Apparently it's better to convert an SVG to a high-res bitmap and resize that down with a bitmap program such as Paint.net instead of converting the SVG straight to the target bitmap sizes (at least when using InkScape). The two attached icons differ at size 32: cygwin-terminal2.ico has the Cygwin-in-terminal there, whereas cygwin-terminal3.ico has just the Cygwin symbol. Size 32 shows up in the Windows 7 taskbar. Further to those two, here's one with the glowy Cygwin symbol all the way from size 16 to 64. It's a remastered version of the one in cygutils; a bit bigger and with the aforementioned brighter green outline around the C. (256x256 versions of these aren't really worth doing, because the original fatbuttlarry icon was only 96x96, and that had a fair bit of space around the C.) Andy attachment: cygwin-symbol.ico
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Jul 29 08:11, Warren Young wrote: On 7/29/2011 3:42 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Jul 29 03:14, Warren Young wrote: Is there official vector logo art I can use? I don't think so, sorry. Okay, here's my take: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/traced-icon.svg This should probably be archived somewhere on cygwin.com. I won't guarantee hosting for it. I'd prefer to go for a lone C in the = 32x32 sizes. Here's a combined icon -- same 5 sizes as before -- based on the new vector logo, with the two parts individually stroked for contrast against both light and dark backgrounds: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/stroked.ico Here's a version with heavy chiseled bevels and shadows added: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled.ico It only includes a 256 px version, since it's too much detail to work at small sizes. You'd want to fill in the smaller sizes with a simpler style, like the stroked C or the plain Konsole. The bevel depth and style can of course be varied, as can the shadow angle, opacity, etc. If you don't like it but can describe what you'd like better, I'll take a shot at creating it. What I'd like to see is the stroked and beveled variants in 48x48 with a light grey border of only 1 pixel, standalone, as well as in a terminal frame. Here are some 3-D variants of the Cygwin logo, one inside the Konsole terminal frame for MinTTY, and one with the logo alone for broader purposes: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/mintty-icon/3d.ico In 256x256 this looks excellent, but I don't think this would work in 48x48. http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/3d.ico Again, 256 px only, for detail reasons. What if the green glow around the black C glows a bit more? Try this on: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/glowing.ico It's not bad, but I prefer the stroked variants. Uh, uhm... no, that's not nice. It looks kind of sick. So far I like stroked and beveled, just the thick white frame is a bit too much. I don't know if and how that works, but the optimum would be a light frame which is just light enough to set the icon apart from a dark background, while it's not too light to be unpleasant on a light background. Is that possible at all? I don't know. Gimp is really uncooperative to me. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Jul 29 10:21, Warren Young wrote: Couldn't resist doing another. I call this one The Matrix: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/matrix.ico Heh, funny. But again, probably not feasible in smaller sizes. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Jul 29 21:29, Andy Koppe wrote: Attached is my take on this, with 64x64, 48x48, 32x32 showing fatbuttlarry's Cygwin symbol inside the Konsole icon, and 16x16 showing the Cygwin symbol only. Not bad, but the green border around the C is too dark to set the C apart from the background. The border needs some light grey which allows to recognize the C. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
Collecting all Corinna reply answers here: On 7/28/2011 3:08 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: It seems that black was a bad choice for the Cygwin C. Is there a reason we cannot change it now? I don't see that Red Hat has filed a US trademark on the logo. Even if they had, it's usually better to file without reference to color. Ref: http://goo.gl/MXIbK Is the new color scheme on cygwin.com just someone's disconnected idea, or is it part of the product's current identity? Perhaps green and black is démodé? the longer I see the 48x48 icon on my desctop, the more I like it. You mean the second version, with the bright Cygwin logo alone in the terminal window, rather than the original with text composite? We can mix-and-match. We could go for a lone Konsole icon for the smaller sizes and add the Cygwin C only at larger sizes, for example. That's one of the freedoms you buy when you include multiple sizes in a single icon file. At the largest size, we'd have enough resolution to add some text back in. Imagine a green glass tty look with, say, autoconf output, scaled for a proper 80x25 grid? The lighter the terminal background gets, the less it's recognized as a terminal background. True. The only reason to do that is to improve contrast, and as you point out, changing the foreground brightness instead also accomplishes that. What if the green glow around the black C glows a bit more? Totally doable. The main limit is taste, not tech. What if the green glow is replaced with a pretty light grey glow, just to help distinguishing the C from the background? Yes. You also have choices of mattes, strokes, bevels, etc. I'm also a fair hand with 3D, which gets you specular highlights, shadows and suchlike, which can help a logo pop off a dark background. Is there official vector logo art I can use? I can do my own tracing, but if there's something official, I'd rather start from that. It would probably be easier if I could handle gimp better Let me handle this, ma'am. I'm a trained professional. :) (One of my day job hats is graphics-monkey-by-default, 2D since 1995, 3D since 2007.)
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Jul 29 03:14, Warren Young wrote: Collecting all Corinna reply answers here: On 7/28/2011 3:08 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: It seems that black was a bad choice for the Cygwin C. Is there a reason we cannot change it now? I don't see that Red Hat has filed a US trademark on the logo. It's not about Red Hat. The C may be ugly, but it's something which is now recognized as Cygwin. Is the new color scheme on cygwin.com just someone's disconnected idea, or is it part of the product's current identity? Perhaps green and black is démodé? cgf just modernized the web page. It has nothing to do with the colors of the C. the longer I see the 48x48 icon on my desctop, the more I like it. You mean the second version, with the bright Cygwin logo alone in the terminal window, rather than the original with text composite? Right. We can mix-and-match. We could go for a lone Konsole icon for the smaller sizes and add the Cygwin C only at larger sizes, for example. That's one of the freedoms you buy when you include multiple sizes in a single icon file. I'd prefer to go for a lone C in the = 32x32 sizes. At the largest size, we'd have enough resolution to add some text back in. Imagine a green glass tty look with, say, autoconf output, scaled for a proper 80x25 grid? Sounds nice, but it distracts from the message (the C). What if the green glow around the black C glows a bit more? Totally doable. The main limit is taste, not tech. That's what I played with in gimp, but the results didn't look overly well. That doesn't mean much, though. I would like to see this once done by a professional, just to be sure it's unbearable. :) What if the green glow is replaced with a pretty light grey glow, just to help distinguishing the C from the background? Yes. You also have choices of mattes, strokes, bevels, etc. Oh, I don't know how this looks like. If I had examples... I'm also a fair hand with 3D, which gets you specular highlights, shadows and suchlike, which can help a logo pop off a dark background. Sounds good for 256x256, but how feasible is that in 48x48? Is there official vector logo art I can use? I don't think so, sorry. It would probably be easier if I could handle gimp better Let me handle this, ma'am. I'm a trained professional. :) Yessir! With pleasure, sir! Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Jul 29 11:42, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Jul 29 03:14, Warren Young wrote: We can mix-and-match. We could go for a lone Konsole icon for the smaller sizes and add the Cygwin C only at larger sizes, for example. That's one of the freedoms you buy when you include multiple sizes in a single icon file. I'd prefer to go for a lone C in the = 32x32 sizes. Ouch. s/=/=/ Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
RE: 256x256 px icons
Warren Young sent the following at Friday, July 29, 2011 10:12 AM http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/glowing.ico http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/logo-glowing.ico
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 7/29/2011 9:21 AM, Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) [E] wrote: Warren Young sent the following at Friday, July 29, 2011 10:12 AM http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/glowing.ico http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/logo-glowing.ico I've fixed it so the original URL is correct. (None of the other .ico files are prefixed logo- because they're in a logo subdir.) Thanks for catching that.
Re: 256x256 px icons
Couldn't resist doing another. I call this one The Matrix: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/matrix.ico
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 29 July 2011 15:11, Warren Young wrote: On 7/29/2011 3:42 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Jul 29 03:14, Warren Young wrote: Is there official vector logo art I can use? I don't think so, sorry. Okay, here's my take: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/traced-icon.svg This should probably be archived somewhere on cygwin.com. I won't guarantee hosting for it. I'd prefer to go for a lone C in the = 32x32 sizes. Here's a combined icon -- same 5 sizes as before -- based on the new vector logo, with the two parts individually stroked for contrast against both light and dark backgrounds: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/stroked.ico Here's a version with heavy chiseled bevels and shadows added: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/beveled.ico It only includes a 256 px version, since it's too much detail to work at small sizes. You'd want to fill in the smaller sizes with a simpler style, like the stroked C or the plain Konsole. The bevel depth and style can of course be varied, as can the shadow angle, opacity, etc. If you don't like it but can describe what you'd like better, I'll take a shot at creating it. Here are some 3-D variants of the Cygwin logo, one inside the Konsole terminal frame for MinTTY, and one with the logo alone for broader purposes: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/mintty-icon/3d.ico http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/3d.ico Again, 256 px only, for detail reasons. What if the green glow around the black C glows a bit more? Try this on: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/glowing.ico It's not bad, but I prefer the stroked variants. Incidentally, while doing that, I went and made a layered, rasterized Konsole icon from the original SVG. This is how the 3D Cygwin logo in the Konsole frame has the same glare overlay as the original icon. http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/mintty-icon/konsole-icon-layered.psd I checked, and Gimp does seem to render it correctly, even though it wasn't created that way. Attached is my take on this, with 64x64, 48x48, 32x32 showing fatbuttlarry's Cygwin symbol inside the Konsole icon, and 16x16 showing the Cygwin symbol only. Andy attachment: cygwin-terminal.ico
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Jul 29 08:11, Warren Young wrote: On 7/29/2011 3:42 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Jul 29 03:14, Warren Young wrote: Is there official vector logo art I can use? I don't think so, sorry. Okay, here's my take: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/logo/traced-icon.svg [...] I'm too tired today. I'll have a look over the weekend. Thx, Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
Hi Warren, Hi Andy, On Jul 28 06:50, Andy Koppe wrote: On 27 July 2011 22:11, Warren Young wrote: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/mintty-icon/no-text.ico That looks a lot better, thanks. Nice work removing the prompt. Did you go back to the original SVG to do that? It also has the gray edges on the smaller icons instead of black, and transparent corners in the 16x16. I had to remove the text, which makes the result not as clearly a terminal. At 256 and arguably at 48 px, you can figure out that it might be a terminal, especially if you've seen the icon in its previous incarnation. At 32 px and below, I challenge anyone to honestly tell me that there is any sense of terminal left in this version. Fair point. Indeed. There's also the problem that the Cygwin C is harder to recognize on the dark grey background the smaller the icon gets. Compared to the original mintty icon, the left and right sides of the terminal frame gets harder to recognize, too, the smaller the icon gets. I think that's a result of using more low-key shades of grey. Alternatively I just need glasses. One could make an argument for going back to the plain old Konsole icon. Maybe one icon cannot serve two masters. Just to be clear: I'd be happy with the modernized Cygwin icon too. I still prefer both that and the Konsole icon over the combined one (even ignoring the issue with the non-transparent border). Thanks again for putting in this effort to have something tangible to compare with. I fall in with the thanks. It looks like a terminal frame and the Cygwin C are no good companions, icon-wise. It seems that black was a bad choice for the Cygwin C. I have a rather dark background on my W7 32bit test machine. It doesn't matter if I use the original icon or the fatbuttlarry icon, both are hard to see, except for the green wedge. And the (much too) big shortcut overlays don't help either. Hmm. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Jul 28 11:08, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Hi Warren, Hi Andy, On Jul 28 06:50, Andy Koppe wrote: On 27 July 2011 22:11, Warren Young wrote: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/mintty-icon/no-text.ico That looks a lot better, thanks. Nice work removing the prompt. Did you go back to the original SVG to do that? It also has the gray edges on the smaller icons instead of black, and transparent corners in the 16x16. I had to remove the text, which makes the result not as clearly a terminal. At 256 and arguably at 48 px, you can figure out that it might be a terminal, especially if you've seen the icon in its previous incarnation. At 32 px and below, I challenge anyone to honestly tell me that there is any sense of terminal left in this version. Fair point. Indeed. There's also the problem that the Cygwin C is harder to recognize on the dark grey background the smaller the icon gets. Compared to the original mintty icon, the left and right sides of the terminal frame gets harder to recognize, too, the smaller the icon gets. I think that's a result of using more low-key shades of grey. Alternatively I just need glasses. One could make an argument for going back to the plain old Konsole icon. Maybe one icon cannot serve two masters. Just to be clear: I'd be happy with the modernized Cygwin icon too. I still prefer both that and the Konsole icon over the combined one (even ignoring the issue with the non-transparent border). Thanks again for putting in this effort to have something tangible to compare with. I fall in with the thanks. It looks like a terminal frame and the Cygwin C are no good companions, icon-wise. It seems that black was a bad choice for the Cygwin C. I have a rather dark background on my W7 32bit test machine. It doesn't matter if I use the original icon or the fatbuttlarry icon, both are hard to see, except for the green wedge. And the (much too) big shortcut overlays don't help either. Hmm. Actually, the longer I see the 48x48 icon on my desctop, the more I like it. If the left and right terminal frames would be just one pixel thicker, and the terminal background a teeny little bit lighter, I think I could go with it. For the smaller sizes, maybe we should simply fall back to the plain old Cygwin C? Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Jul 28 12:26, Corinna Vinschen wrote: On Jul 28 11:08, Corinna Vinschen wrote: Hi Warren, Hi Andy, On Jul 28 06:50, Andy Koppe wrote: On 27 July 2011 22:11, Warren Young wrote: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/mintty-icon/no-text.ico [...] Actually, the longer I see the 48x48 icon on my desctop, the more I like it. If the left and right terminal frames would be just one pixel thicker, and the terminal background a teeny little bit lighter, I think I could go with it. For the smaller sizes, maybe we should simply fall back to the plain old Cygwin C? Oh well, my professional art critic senses would like to discuss this a bit more. The lighter the terminal background gets, the less it's recognized as a terminal background. So, instead of making the tty background lighter, are there other choices to make the Cygwin C better stand out? - What if the green glow around the black C glows a bit more? - What if the green glow is replaced with a pretty light grey glow, just to help distinguishing the C from the background? - Only in 48x48, what if the C is made one pixel bigger in each direction, perhaps combined with a lighter glow, green or grey? It would probably be easier if I could handle gimp better, but I'm still trying to untangle my fingers from the mouse cord... Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On Jul 26 06:54, Warren Young wrote: On 7/26/2011 5:01 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: This discussion reminds me of the new icon format in Vista, which support icons of up to 256x256 bytes in PNG format. Pixels, not bytes, unless you were thinking about 8 bpp paletted images. Right, pixels. I don't see -- in the almost nonexistent docs -- that windres actually supports PNG icons. windres.exe isn't linked to cygpng*.dll on my system, so if it does support PNG icons, it must do so only by blindly copying the PNG data into the COFF file. I think it does. In the setup sources is a cygwin.ico file and these two lines in the resource file: IDI_CYGWIN ICONDISCARDABLE cygwin.ico CYGWIN.ICON FILEDISCARDABLE cygwin.ico That doesn't look like windres cares for the actual format of the file. Is that something we should add, too? The only time I've found where I can tell that a program has a high-res icon is by looking at the blue info bar at the bottom of Explorer windows. A little poking around suggests that at least 64x64 is useful with the default bar size. You can resize it to make Explorer use a larger icon, if available, but I doubt many ever do that. For XP support, we still need to ship 32x32 and 48x48 pixel icons. I just had a look into the cygwin.ico file using gimp, and it appears that the file has three icons, 32x32, 64x64 and 72x72. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511280.aspx#size says the default sizes are 16x16, 24x24, 32x32, 48x48, and 256x256. You say you already have created such icon files before. Would you have fun to create a new official cygwin.ico? The only problem to look out for is licensing. If you use foreign art, you have to make sure that the icon is published under a free license. Corinna -- Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to Cygwin Project Co-Leader cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Red Hat
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 7/27/2011 1:41 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: You say you already have created such icon files before. Would you have fun to create a new official cygwin.ico? Here you go: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/mintty-icon/combined.ico That file contains a 256 px 32 bpp (RGBA) Vista (PNG) icon plus standard BMP icons in 48 px 32 bpp, 32 px 8 bpp, 24 px 8 bpp, and 16 px 8 bpp sizes and depths. If you look at the directory view, you can see the source files that went into this. I used the icobundl tool from http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/product/ICOBundle to assemble combined.ico. I'm willing to keep playing with this a bit more. Points of discussion: - Do we need more sizes? I've seen reference to odd sizes like 64x64 and 96x96, but surely we can trust Vista+ to scale the 256x256 to these sizes without needing hand-tweaked versions? - Something I read talked about the 16x16 being 4bpp, but I can't see a need for that since the the old Windows 95 Plus Pack days. Everything from Win98 up should actually be fine with 16bpp and up. The only reason I used 8bpp for the smallest ones is that's a big enough box of crayons. - There are two source icon files. full-size.png is pretty much what I linked to yesterday as mintty-icon-glowy-wedge.png, with some minor tweaks. high-contrast is a variant of this with higher contrast, needed when scaling to smaller sizes. - The 16, 24 and 32 px versions are pretty heavily hand-tweaked after they were scaled down from high-contrast.png. Acceptable, or more tweaking needed? The only problem to look out for is licensing. If you use foreign art, you have to make sure that the icon is published under a free license. There are two source pieces, the fattbuttlary Cygwin icon and the KDE Konsole icon. I assembled and massaged them on work time. Red Hat has a copyright assignment on file for me, from way back.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 27 July 2011 18:30, Warren Young wrote: On 7/27/2011 1:41 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: You say you already have created such icon files before. Would you have fun to create a new official cygwin.ico? Here you go: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/mintty-icon/combined.ico That file contains a 256 px 32 bpp (RGBA) Vista (PNG) icon plus standard BMP icons in 48 px 32 bpp, 32 px 8 bpp, 24 px 8 bpp, and 16 px 8 bpp sizes and depths. If you look at the directory view, you can see the source files that went into this. Thanks very much for putting in this effort. However, there are a number of problems. In increasing order of subjectivity: - The 16x16 has white dots in the corners. - There are black edges around the icons. Those need to be transparent. - Contrast and saturation are rather low. I think it would be better to overlay the Cygwin symbol on top of the terminal rather than blending them. - The terminal's screen is too busy with both the prompt and the 'C'. I think the _ would need to go. - Even then, I'm not convinced this will be as good as either of the original icons, because it will still look like a compromise, with the glossy Cygwin symbol sticking out of the more matte terminal screen in the bigger versions and getting squashed in the 16x16 version. Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 7/27/2011 2:04 PM, Andy Koppe wrote: - The 16x16 has white dots in the corners. That was a feature. But you no like it, I make go 'way. - There are black edges around the icons. Those need to be transparent. Why? I purposely redrew the edges in the smaller icons for contrast and clarity. (Among other things.) Because the Konsole icon edges are black, I made the semitransparent pixels you get from simple downsampling pure black. If all you want is the blurry mess you get from a direct downsample, there's no point in having the smaller icons at all. Maybe a dark gray would make you happier? Something that approximates the appearance of a thin black line blending into the background the icon is being matted on, without trying to make use of alpha blending? My old skool heritage is showing. I've been trained not to use alpha blending a 32 px and below. When I was a boy, all we had was 8 bpp with one color reserved for yes/no transparency, AND WE LIKED IT. Is this outmoded? Will XP do the right thing with RGBA for 16 px icons? Is that a good idea regardless, or is old skool the only skool? - Contrast and saturation are rather low. I think it would be better to overlay the Cygwin symbol on top of the terminal rather than blending them. Here it is: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/mintty-icon/no-text.ico It also has the gray edges on the smaller icons instead of black, and transparent corners in the 16x16. I had to remove the text, which makes the result not as clearly a terminal. At 256 and arguably at 48 px, you can figure out that it might be a terminal, especially if you've seen the icon in its previous incarnation. At 32 px and below, I challenge anyone to honestly tell me that there is any sense of terminal left in this version. One could make an argument for going back to the plain old Konsole icon. Maybe one icon cannot serve two masters. I don't want to get all bikesheddy. I'm just telling you my thought process, so we can get to a decision.
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 7/27/2011 1:30 PM, Warren Young wrote: - Do we need more sizes? I've seen reference to odd sizes like 64x64 and 96x96, but surely we can trust Vista+ to scale the 256x256 to these sizes without needing hand-tweaked versions? - Something I read talked about the 16x16 being 4bpp, but I can't see a need for that since the the old Windows 95 Plus Pack days. Everything from Win98 up should actually be fine with 16bpp and up. The only reason I used 8bpp for the smallest ones is that's a big enough box of crayons. Read this: /usr/share/doc/cygutils/cygicons/README == First, 4bpp is not just ANY 16 colors. Its required to be exactly the old EGA colors. 8bpp can use any 256 colors, but many use the web-safe 216, plus 40 others. These don't support alpha, but just a single 'transparent' color. Windows XP style guidelines say that magenta (#ff00ff) should be used for this purpose. 24bpp has no alpha, instead uses a single color (out of your 16M) for transparency. 32bpp is the only one with alpha. Main icon sizes: 16x16: used on the TaskBar 24x24: uncommon. used on the left half of the Start Menu in Windows XP. 32x32: default icon size for desktop icons 48x48: DisplayProperties-Appearance-Advanced, Item=Icon, set size. Not often used. 64x64: New icon size for Vista. 256x256 : New icon size for Vista. Stored in compressed PNG format within the .ico file; completely violates all the rules described above. == plus: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms997636.aspx (WinXP icon style guide) Icon Sizes There are four sizes of Windows icons—48 × 48, 32 × 32, 24 × 24, and 16 × 16 pixels. We recommend that your icon contains these three sizes: 48 × 48 pixels 32 × 32 pixels 16 × 16 pixels Each Windows XP icon should contain these three color depths to support different monitor display settings: 24-bit with 8-bit alpha (32-bit) 8-bit (256 colors) with 1-bit transparency 4-bit (16 colors) with 1-bit transparency == and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511280.aspx (Vista style guide) Icon files require 8-bit and 4-bit palette versions as well, to support the default setting in a remote desktop. These files can be created through a batch process, but they should be reviewed, as some will require retouching for better readability. Bit levels: ICO design for 32-bit (alpha included) + 8-bit + 4-bit (dithered down automatically—pixel poke only most critical). Only a 32-bit copy of the 256x256 pixel image should be included, and only the 256x256 pixel image should be compressed to keep the file size down. Several icon tools offer compression for Windows Vista. Bit levels: Toolbars 24-bit + alpha (1 bit mask), 8-bit and 4-bit. Toolbars or AVI files: Use magenta (R255 G0 B255) as the background transparency color. Application icons and Control Panel items: The full set includes 16x16, 32x32, 48x48, and 256x256 (code scales between 32 and 256). The .ico file format is required. For Classic Mode, the full set is 16x16, 24x24, 32x32, 48x48 and 64x64. Additional sizes: These are useful to have on hand as resources to make other files (for example, annotations, toolbar strips, overlays, high dpi, and special cases): 128x128, 96x96, 64x64, 40x40, 24x24, 22x22, 14x14, 10x10, and 8x8. You can use .ico, .png, .bmp, or other file formats, depending on code in that area. [ed: uhm, NO. NO NO NO to 128, 96, 40, 22, 14, 10, and 8.] == The only problem to look out for is licensing. If you use foreign art, you have to make sure that the icon is published under a free license. There are two source pieces, the fattbuttlary Cygwin icon and the KDE Konsole icon. I assembled and massaged them on work time. Red Hat has a copyright assignment on file for me, from way back. the fatbuttlarry icon is GPL. not sure about the KDE Konsole icon. -- Chuck
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 27 July 2011 22:11, Warren Young wrote: On 7/27/2011 2:04 PM, Andy Koppe wrote: - The 16x16 has white dots in the corners. That was a feature. But you no like it, I make go 'way. Thanks. - There are black edges around the icons. Those need to be transparent. Why? I purposely redrew the edges in the smaller icons for contrast and clarity. (Among other things.) Because the Konsole icon edges are black, I made the semitransparent pixels you get from simple downsampling pure black. If all you want is the blurry mess you get from a direct downsample, there's no point in having the smaller icons at all. Maybe a dark gray would make you happier? Something that approximates the appearance of a thin black line blending into the background the icon is being matted on, without trying to make use of alpha blending? My old skool heritage is showing. I've been trained not to use alpha blending a 32 px and below. When I was a boy, all we had was 8 bpp with one color reserved for yes/no transparency, AND WE LIKED IT. Is this outmoded? Will XP do the right thing with RGBA for 16 px icons? Is that a good idea regardless, or is old skool the only skool? I don't know about that. What I do know is that the Konsole icon looks fine to me, including at 16px, and that I haven't had any complaints about it. To me, the black/grey border just looked like something went wrong with transparency during the conversion. Also, at 16px, the left and right sides of the terminal screen's frame have actually gone. - Contrast and saturation are rather low. I think it would be better to overlay the Cygwin symbol on top of the terminal rather than blending them. Here it is: http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/mintty-icon/no-text.ico That looks a lot better, thanks. Nice work removing the prompt. Did you go back to the original SVG to do that? It also has the gray edges on the smaller icons instead of black, and transparent corners in the 16x16. I had to remove the text, which makes the result not as clearly a terminal. At 256 and arguably at 48 px, you can figure out that it might be a terminal, especially if you've seen the icon in its previous incarnation. At 32 px and below, I challenge anyone to honestly tell me that there is any sense of terminal left in this version. Fair point. One could make an argument for going back to the plain old Konsole icon. Maybe one icon cannot serve two masters. Just to be clear: I'd be happy with the modernized Cygwin icon too. I still prefer both that and the Konsole icon over the combined one (even ignoring the issue with the non-transparent border). Thanks again for putting in this effort to have something tangible to compare with. Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 27 July 2011 23:26, Charles Wilson wrote: the fatbuttlarry icon is GPL. not sure about the KDE Konsole icon. It's LGPL. Andy
Re: 256x256 px icons
On 7/26/2011 5:01 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote: This discussion reminds me of the new icon format in Vista, which support icons of up to 256x256 bytes in PNG format. Pixels, not bytes, unless you were thinking about 8 bpp paletted images. I don't see -- in the almost nonexistent docs -- that windres actually supports PNG icons. windres.exe isn't linked to cygpng*.dll on my system, so if it does support PNG icons, it must do so only by blindly copying the PNG data into the COFF file. Is that something we should add, too? The only time I've found where I can tell that a program has a high-res icon is by looking at the blue info bar at the bottom of Explorer windows. A little poking around suggests that at least 64x64 is useful with the default bar size. You can resize it to make Explorer use a larger icon, if available, but I doubt many ever do that. For XP support, we still need to ship 32x32 and 48x48 pixel icons.
