Re: [lmi] using standard icon sizes and wxArtProvider

[Vaclav Slavik]

Hi,

On Sun, 2008-08-24 at 14:23 +0000, Greg Chicares wrote: 
> I'd welcome a better idea. For instance: instead of human figures
> that can't be recognized at 16x16 resolution, how about Chinese
> "rod" numerals [U+1D360, U+1D361, U+1D362]...
> 
> 一 = 1 [U+1D360]; 二 = 2; 三 = 3
> 
> ...superimposed on GNOME icons? 

I'm not sure if superimposing would work -- at 16x16, tiny details like
that get overlooked and the icons need to be distinguishable at a glance
to be useful, otherwise they'd be mere decorations and not navigational
aids. It's probably better to have 1,2,3 objects in the icon at this
size. But in general, the counting approach worked for me we with the
existing icons (where you do the same, only with more complicated shapes
than the "rods"): the cardinality was clear even without knowing the
precise meaning of "class" and "case" terms in this domain.

> Alternatively, is there a better way of distinguishing, e.g., three
> print operations, iconically? Differentiating them only by color
> might work, and would at least be visually discernible.

The problem with color-coding is that it's not very good from usability
standpoint: not only is it much less useful for color-blind users, all
users have to learn the entirely arbitrary color->function mapping used.
That defeats the purpose of having icons as easily recognizable
representations for the actions.

> Yet another option is to revert to the icon set used by our legacy
> application. (Let me know if you don't have it handy, and I'll send
> it to you.) I think those icons are clearer, but they're also cruder,
> and might not mix well with the highly-polished GNOME icons; then we
> might choose to use no GNOME icons, because a consistently-crude icon
> set would at least be consistent. What do you think?

Personally, I think the "old" GNOME-derived ones without antialiasing
are better, because they are larger (for toolbars). On Linux, they blend
much better into the desktop (of course they do, being based on the old
GNOME style), but I'd say they're better fit even on Windows XP than the
win3.1-style of the IHS ones.

> BTW, are there stock icons for menuitems on the MDI "Window" menu,

Not that I'm aware of -- Qt doesn't have them, GTK+ doesn't do MDI and
Windows doesn't have stock icons. Some GTK+ 

> Let me ask you to convert them, too, please. Consistency is a good
> enough reason. Another good reason is that firefox doesn't display the
> XPM icons that I have embedded in html help (though wxHTML does), and
> I'd like the user manual to be browsable online. Using your PNG icons
> in the html solves the firefox problem.

OK, will do.

Regards,
Vaclav