Some size 32 icons do not follow pre-existing icon standards

jaerrib / waterleaf-icon-theme

Waterleaf icon theme for Linux

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Some size 32 icons do not follow pre-existing icon standards #15

Open jaerrib opened 4 years ago

jaerrib commented 4 years ago

Developers guide needs to be updated to reflect shadows and highlights needed for size 32 icons
Multiple icons need to have these feature added to improve overall consistency with the rest of the theme

q4osteam commented 4 years ago

We have performed a testing based on the latest Waterleaf changes, commit 2688382718c2c3c5e4193b9e396c8bb5f75475bb , in TDE as well as Plasma Debonaire theme. It seems, shadows on 32 sized icons break clarity of them somewhat and affect the theme look. After a thorough rethinking we can say, the overall experience is definitely more modern and elegant for 32 sized icons without shadowing. So, we would suggest to revert the Composition guidelines back and not to continue shadowing 32 sized icons. Anyway, thank you for working on that.

q4osteam commented 4 years ago

Additionally, we would suggest to tolerate mixed shadowing for 32 sized icons. So, let existing, or newly imported, icons as they are, but not to shadow these created from scratch. The resulted user experience should be still better, then shadowing them all.

jaerrib commented 4 years ago

After assessing other shadowed icons (which predate the transition from PaperQ4OS to Waterleaf), I noticed that the shadows used on size 32 icons sit 1 pixel below the main element(s) and have no blur effect. All of the shadows I have been using utilized a 1.0 blur effect. With commit 0189bbbd2b084f4fa290971f44d7dadc5bec39d0, I made a few samples without the blur to see if that improves the look at all. Please review and provide feedback, and I will adjust things accordingly (including previous commits if necessary.)

q4osteam commented 4 years ago

We are going to do testing and provide a feedback as soon as possible.

q4osteam commented 4 years ago

Some improvement is visible, but the overall experience is still more elegant for 32 sized icons with no effects. The 32 icons are simply too small, and any extra effect makes them too complicated and so more unclear.

Moreover, we have realized another important factor. Any effect takes computing resources to calculate and render the icon image, particularly for vectorized ".svg" icons. As the effects have no visual assets for the smaller icons (<=32), and to keep lightness and system speed, we would suggest the following approach for different icons sizes as well as updating composition guidelines accordingly:

< 32: No effects. More schematic, simplified. Thicker lines, less colors, to be distinguishable as best as possible. = 32: No effects (shadows, color blending, transitions, ...), full colors > 32: Effects ok, colors ok

jaerrib commented 4 years ago

The following commits removed shadows that had recently been applied to multiple size 32 icons: b78c9cd1a6d16746ad19781120c6eaeb0886baef 45a9e64eac5dbc4fdb1f42e3b5d2c86100b84aa9 e292dae5028c43d3d313b50ce72c63caaa7f8283 8240fd544096cb054ef276db8c325020010d64ca

I also updated the dev guide with commit e54bb665f81ee40c9f41399a80ed974629516708