Gnome Icon Status Report #11 -- Back From Outer Space

[mawarkus t-online de (Matthias Warkus)]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gnome Icon Status Report
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
as of November 28th, 1999
by mawa



WHAT'S GOING ON?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's been a long time since the last GISR (a month and eleven days, to
be exact). I have been under severe stress so I didn't get around to
do anything, but now I've got my driver's licence in the pocket, the
celebrations for my 18th birthday are over, my article for LinuxPlanet
is nearly done, the issue of the school magazine I work for has been
completed -- finally, time for icons again.

Dennis Lee has made an exciting suggestion to me. Since we've now got
a thriving project for the creation of Gnome artwork, he had the idea
that maybe this project should not only produce icons, but also clip
art for the coming office suite and such. I have never been very
satisfied with the clip art that most office programs provide: there
are "categories" of related clip art graphics where all the images are
of a different size, different style and different colour
scheme. Gnome clip artists should try to make this better and create
consistent, usable clip art categories. I intend to go ahead and write
a Bonobo component that implements the functionality of the Microsoft
Clip Art Gallery and more as soon as the next major version of Gnome
is done and Bonobo stabilises.

Now that I've got more time, Stefan Kamphausen has got less. He is not
going to do any work on the Development and Administration icons, but
he transferred his ideas: For development, he'd like to see the
G-shaped head of a heavy-duty wrench, for administration, a
conductor's baton. Feel free to give those ideas a stab if you like
them.

I will discontinue GITHNYBM if no one opposes this. As far as I can
see, these status reports, together with Scott's icon Web page serve
the purpose of GITHNYBM and more, so I will avoid duplicate work and
add a note to GITHNYBM that the facility has been discontinued.

Burn All GIFs Day is over, but still, there are non-PNG icons and
graphics left in Gnome. Volunteers who want to be of use should try to
track down any such images, especially GIFs, and convert them to PNG
if applicable.

The Gnome Update Manager needs a logo. An entry for this program is
available in the Gnome Software Map; the author can be contacted under
<u07ih@abdn.ac.uk>.

There are various signs of increasing TigerT activity. I hope we can
soon see more icons by him again.

Icon productivity has been enormous recently, but since there were no
GISRs, it has faltered, which I can understand. I hope it will pick up
again now that I have got around to do GISR #11.



WHAT HAS BEEN DONE:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The JBC clock applet has been given an icon;
dito for the Amusements directory;
someone has done major prettification of the Gnome Emacs icon;
TigerT has made an icon for EoG;
there is now an icon for Startup Hints Properties.

The ADD stock pixmap has been reused as the icon for "Add/Swallowed
Application".

guiTar has been removed from the list since it doesn't seem to be
actively maintained any more.



MISSING ICONS IN THE FOOT MENU:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Submenu icons:
- Applications
- Development (candidate available)
- Administration
- Settings (candidate available)

Games:
- gTuring (candidates available)
- Gnomehack
- Gnotski

Internet:
- gftp (candidates in the making)

Settings Submenus:
- Multimedia (candidate in the making)
(10) - User Interface Options

Settings:
- Gnome Edit Properties
- Save Current Session
- Session Manager Properties

User Interface Options:
- Application Defaults
- MDI (candidate in the making)

Utilities:
- Text File Viewer (gless; candidate in the making)
- Gnome Penguin
- GDict (candidate in the making)




MISSING ICONS IN THE PANEL CONTEXT MENU:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Add" submenu:
- Status dock

Amusements:
(20) - Sixty Four Bits

Clocks:
- Clock
- AfterStep Clock

Monitors:
- SwapLoad
- NetLoad (candidate in the making)

Network:
- WebControl
- URL Collector

Utility:
- Mini Commander
- GDict (candidate in the making)
- Where am I?
(30) - GNotes!
- QuickLaunch
- Clipboard
- bug-applet



CONFLICTS
~~~~~~~~~
- Balsa and TkRat using same icon
- Go and Gwp using same icon
- Gnome PPP, Internet Submenu, XSiteCopy using same icon
- Sound properties, Multimedia submenu, GUMMA using same icon
- Printer applet, GULP using same icon



SUBOPTIMAL ICONS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bitgrazer: has text, is not shaped
Glines: could use transparency
GnomeCard: as mentioned above: new one needed
GQview: a logo, not shaped, illegible, too massive
HAL 2001: both the icon and the actual panel pixmap are not shaped and
          thus there's an ugly black square around them (we're working
		  on it)
Logview icon: metaphor is not international
X-Chat: the new icon is better, but still a logo and not shaped
Imlib Properties: Yet Another Blank Page Icon
Screem: is a logo
Utilities menus: Swiss Army knife could do with more contrast

Feel free to comment.



TOTAL
~~~~~

We're still at about 40 empty entries.

Thanks to all who have contributed.



REMARKS
~~~~~~~

Send any ideas, remarks or contributions to me as I have now got
official permission to add them to the CVS tree. Have a look at
GITHNYBM if you want to make icons.

Don't compress icons individually when submitting them to me. Either
pack several into a tarball or (preferred) send unpacked PNGs. Zipping
a single PNG file is pointless as PNG compresses internally.

If you've got any nice, big logos for Gnome applications, please
submit them; they'll be needed for Phase 2.

Please, please, please: If you want to make icons, make icons that are
mentioned in the report as needed. Don't send me another dozen of ZIP
drive icons or of Adobe PDF icons. Thanks.

mawa <mawa@iname.com>
-- 
I use Linux because I have yet got to see another OS that gives me the
same feeling of immense power on my fingertips. And because I have yet
got to see another software cosmos that makes me feel so sure that
difficulties will be overcome and deficiencies will be fixed.  -- mawa