Subject: Re: fvwm-icons: icon sizes

From: Julian Gilbey <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 03:20:20 +0100 (BST)

[Cc'd to fvwm-workers]

Mikhael wrote:
> There are many icons 48x48 out there. Some window managers (like Next-ish)
> use 64x64. While it is ok for large resolutions, it is really large for
> small resolutions, like 640x480. KDE uses 32x32, GNOME - 48x48. So IMHO
> 48x48 is a good choice. It seems like everyone agrees with 16x16 for
> mini-icons.
> 
> [...]
> Once we decide upon icon sizes, we will be stuck to them. I have a strong
> feeling it is important to be purists here. This means, if we decide that
> application icons must be 48x48, we must not allow 48x43, as well as 16x14
> or 14x14.
> 
> My vote for the sizes of application icons and mini-icons is 48x48 and
> 16x16. What do you think about this?

I agree that it is important to support those people (such as myself)
who use 640x480 monitors.  But what about those who use 1200x1024 or
even higher resolution?  For them, a 16x16 icon is probably almost
invisible.  So what about having three sizes of icons: 16x16 (mini),
48x48 (medium) and 64x64 (big)?  That would solve both ends of the
problem.

   Julian

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, QMW, Univ. of London. [email-masked]
             Debian GNU/Linux Developer.  [email-masked]
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---

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 15:46:43 +0300 (IDT)

> [Cc'd to fvwm-workers]

yes, the discussion was moved to fvwm-workers.

> who use 640x480 monitors.But what about those who use 1200x1024 or
> even higher resolution?For them, a 16x16 icon is probably almost
> invisible.So what about having three sizes of icons: 16x16 (mini),
> 48x48(medium) and 64x64 (big)?That would solve both ends of the
> problem.

We have decided to support different icon sizes by providing full 
one-sized sets. It is not clear yet, though, will this be an automatical
process or redrawing of the entire set to support additional size.
However, because of a large amount of work, the first release may contain
only two one-sized sets (or more).

Regards,
Migo.

---

From: Julian Gilbey <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 23:22:15 +0100 (BST)

> yes, the discussion was moved to fvwm-workers.

(I know, I was just explaining where this message came from.)

> only two one-sized sets (or more).

I would suggest that, as a policy, we decide upon the sizes to be
supported, and create one icon of each size which says "TODO", called
todo.xpm.  Then any missing icons at a given size can be softlinked to
todo.xpm of the correct size.

In this way, the necessary resizing work becomes absolutely explicit,
we have somewhere to put all of our currently usable icons, and we can
lay to rest the question of sizes before the first release.

   Julian

---

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 03:41:05 +0300 (IDT)

> (I know, I was just explaining where this message came from.)

(I know, it was for CC:'ed people that are not on fvwm-workers, if any.)

> supported, and create one icon of each size whichsays "TODO", called
> todo.xpm.Then any missing icons at a given size can be softlinked to

Agreed.

> lay to rest the question of sizes before the first release.

I am still not sure what is the right way. Having emacs.xpm in several
variants (for different sizes) or a single qualatative large emacs.xpm and
doing resizing and/or color optimizations at the instalation time.
First way insures, at least, that current icons can be reused and every
icon is created manually (which is better than automatization). But it is
hard, if not impossible, for extension, if a user wants non-standard
sizes, which is trivial for the second variant.

Regards,
Mikhael.