Re: GTK_Icon becom symbolic: a really good idea?

["Jasper St. Pierre" <jstpierre mecheye net>]

On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 5:37 PM, Gendre Sebastien <korbe romandie com> wrote:
> Hello every body.
>
> I read the guideline of symbolic icons [1] and I'm not ok with all
> points.
>
> Using symbolic icons for system status (on top right in Gnome Shell) or
> volume indication and play options in full screen [2] is relevant.

So this is something you're OK with?

> But I have doubts about the relevance of symbolic icons for GTK icons
> (icons on windows, often inside a GTK Windget).
>
> What is a goal of icons in windows?
> - Be a simple indicator of the kind of button or texte in the GTK
> Widget?

It sounds like you're OK with this except for the mute grayscale color.

> - Be a markers, highlighting some GTK widgets that the user must move
> their attention?

Is this the case on that page you're citing?

http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Whiteboards/SymbolicIcons/UseGuidelines?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=evolution-lists-symbolic.png

The markers in that list control are pieces of information: Is this a
reply? Unread? Does this message have an attachment? Was it sent with
the useless "Important" flag?

Those icons, as I see it, are not there to capture the user's attention.

The idea of symbolic icons is that they're basically an alpha channel,
and the application or widget toolkit gets to decide the color.

I'm assuming that a lot of the time it will be "gray", but the fact
that it's a shape with no color information allows theme authors or
application authors to make the shape look good at any color or on any
background.

> In the first case, using symbolic and grey icon or colored icon like
> don't change user experience. (But using symbolic and grey icon make
> verry sad desktop :()
>
> In the second case, using symbolic and grey icon make these icon usless
> beacause they can't be markers like their goal. And, in this case, we
> need to continue to using colored icon.
>
>
> So, what do you think?
>
> [1]
> http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Whiteboards/SymbolicIcons/UseGuidelines
>
> [2] Ex:
> http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Whiteboards/SymbolicIcons/UseGuidelines?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=osd-symbolic.png or http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Whiteboards/SymbolicIcons/UseGuidelines?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=totem-fullscreen.png
>
>
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