[2547] in Release_7.7_team
Re: AUI Icon Status
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Greg Hudson)
Wed Jan 17 16:02:27 2001
Message-Id: <200101172102.QAA21188@equal-rites.mit.edu>
To: "t. belton" <tbelton@MIT.EDU>
cc: aui@MIT.EDU, release-team@MIT.EDU, Debby Levinson <debby@MIT.EDU>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 17 Jan 2001 15:16:15 EST."
<Pine.GSO.4.30L.0101171455140.15035-100000@iphigenia.mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 16:02:20 -0500
From: Greg Hudson <ghudson@MIT.EDU>
Thanks for clearing this up, Todd.
My comments on auicons.html can be found at:
http://www.mit.edu:8008/menelaus/aui/584
> - Are the new exit and xterm icons good enough?
The exit icon seems fine to me.
The xterm icon seems wrong to me because we're not going to be running
xterm; we're (probably) going to be running gnome-terminal. And the
user probably shouldn't have to know the difference anyway. So the
presence of a red or gray "X" seems misleading at best. There's
nothing particularly "X" about the terminal we're running.
(It's also questionable whether "terminal" is even a good metaphor
these days for what they'll be launching; most users have no
experience with serial terminals and probably think of it as just a
command-line prompt. Unfortunately, "command-line prompt" doesn't
really evoke a graphical image.)
> - Which other icons do we want redesigned?
Here are the icons which will be appearing on the panel:
* The menu icon
* An email icon
* A web browser icon
* A command-line prompt icon
* An editor icon
* A logout icon
I wouldn't mind having most or all of these redesigned. My personal
opinions on them (which are not based on any special insight):
Menu: We might want to leave this one alone (except for adding
a text caption). The footprint isn't very evocative
of "menu," but it does identify the user environment for
those few with prior experience with GNOME.
One possible alternative is an Athena owl.
Email: I'm told that a picture of a mailbox is the most
evocative choice. Sounds great to me.
Browser: The netscape icon is okay, but something more generic
like a globe (unless people think that's too
representative of Internet Explorer) might be better.
Prompt: A terminal icon (with no "X" or any other markings)
seems reasonable to me, but other ideas are welcome.
Editor: I have no clue what is evocative of a text editor.
For the placeholder in the bleeding-edge release I
chose a feather-on-paper icon, but that really seems
like it would evoke the image of a word processor
(something you could write styled text with).
Replacing the feather with a pencil might suggest a
drawing program.
Logout: as mentioned before, the exit sign is great.
The ideal size for a panel icon is 39x39 (48x48 was the right size
before panel was hacked to automatically add captions), although the
current version of the panel will do a pretty good job of scaling
icons.
In addition to the panel icons, we may want some small icons for the
menus and taskbar, although a lack of small icons for things doesn't
hurt too badly. The space for these icons seems to be 16x16 (I don't
know where beland got 20x20 from). We might want these icons
wherever:
* We have a special menu or program which doesn't have an
icon in the GNOME set, or
* We think the GNOME icon for a particular choice is
unacceptable.
I do not have a specific list, and I would be just as happy not to
worry about small icons for now unless someone is psyched to make a
list.
For the most part, these icons are so small that it's harder to be
evocative of anything. You can show "a folder" or "a bubble with
question mark" or "a pen", but something like "a mailbox" might be
tough, and a "a terminal" doesn't seem to come across very well.
