Re: gnome-games tango application icons

["Daniel Derozier" <dcubed20 gmail com>]

On 7/2/06, Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie> wrote:

On Sat, 1 Jul 2006, Daniel Derozier wrote:

> Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2006 21:04:34 -0400
> From: Daniel Derozier <dcubed20 gmail com>
> To: games-list gnome org
> Subject: gnome-games tango application icons
>
> Hello,
>
> I'm proud to announce that I've completed a set of Tango-style (

Thanks for putting the time and effort into creating this icon set.

> www.tango-project.org) application icons for gnome-games! I spoke with the
> project maintainer (me jasonclinton com); he approved of the change and
> elected to merge them. If there are no objections, I'd submit my icons for
> your approval and merging into gnome-games.

I'm not sure I like the proposed icon for Tali using a white die since the
SVG graphics used in the game used a red die (with nicely rounded edges).

The SVG graphics in the game are outdated. I can make the tali icon use a red die (using a tango-red), but I took out the rounded edges as I didn't see them as being in keeping with the modern feel of the set. If popular opinion is for rounded edges, I'll do them. 

The bomb used to represent minesweeper isn't like the icons used for the
mines either which I think would be better.  If I recall correctly other
applications use that type of bomb icon for other purposes (to indicate
core files I think).

There was some discussion on Tango-Artists about what metaphor to use for minesweeper, and it was decided that either a bomb or an icon like microsoft's minesweeper would be best. Since I didn't want to copy microsoft's metaphor, I used a bomb. If you'd rather, I can use the spiky mine metaphor that microsoft uses.

The Klotski icon is a little too abstract for my
liking, from the icon alone it is hard (impossible?) to tell what it
represents.

No offense, but Klotski is an extremely abstract game.  If you or anyone else can come up with a good metaphor to represent "Klotski" (a game that, unlike Tetris for example, nobody knows what it is until they play it for the first time) by all means tell me. The metaphor I used is no better or worse than the current icon.

Blackjack is sometimes also known as 21, showing two cards with that sum
would make a more distinctive and recognisable icon.  Your proposed
Freecell and blackjack icons are very similar to each other
(interchangable might better describe what I'm trying to say) and not as
distinctive as the older icons.  Could the colours of the existing card
game icons be adjusted to fit the Tango palette?

I am confused; my blackjack icon is a black spade and a red heart over a green card table with chips in the background. The icons that are similar are the freecell and aisleriot icons, and those icons are simply the old icons updated in the tango style, with no changes.

The Tetravex icon is lopsided, it doesn't fit it in with the consistent
angles I thought Tango icons are supposed to have.

 I thought that turning the icon to the side would make it more interesting than just sitting straight.

The gnibbles icon looks eerily familiar, is it based on some existing
artwork or have I been playing Worms too much?

It's based on the gnibbles logo by jimmac. There's no reason to fix something that isn't broken, so I just updated it using tango colors and style.

The glines icon is very similar to what went before but it seems like the
best candidate for a new and different icon.  The game is described as
"five or more" but I do not think the 4x4 layout of the current icon helps
convey that concept.

The only thing I have to say here is that dividing a 48x48 (or 32x32 once you get into the menu) icon into five rows is that the content will be obscured. I don't really get how to play glines anyway, so if anyone has a better way to represent "glines" by all means let me know.

I'd feel better about the gnect icon if it actually illustrated a theme
shipped with the game (the red and yellow colour scheme for example).
You can take that as a suggestion to adjust the icons or as encouragement
to use your skills to create a new theme for Gnect, whichever you prefer.

I was actually going to offer to update some of the game themes to the Tango style. If you notice, btw, most of the current icons don't match the in-game themes either.

When finished you should probably save your SVG as "Plain SVG" to avoid
some of the Inkscape (and sodipodi) specific markup and produce slightly
cleaner files.  (The inkscape developers are aware that clean markup which
can be round-tripped is potentially of great value to developers and those
"programming" SVG but a lot of infrastructure would be required to
roundtrip custom markup so it isn't likely going to happen soon.)

I didn't really intend for you to use the SVG in the project, I just included them as source. If you intend to ship the SVG files, then I will definitely clean them up.

Also keep in mind that although Inkscape does not properly support the SVG
filters yet (being worked on as part of the Google Summer of Code) you
need to get a nice blur or drop shadow effects librsvg can render them.
If you have access to other software it might be wise to finish your
drawing in them and and make full use of the features available in SVG
which librsvg can render.

I'm not sure what features you are talking about; the Tango project generally uses an Inkscape-only workflow.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Inkscape http://inkscape.org
Abiword http://www.abisource.com
Open Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org

Alan's Diary http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/

Dan