Gnome Icon Status Report #5 -- "Behold the Plan"

[mawarkus t-online de (Matthias Warkus)]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gnome Icon Status Report
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
as of September 5th, 1999
by mawa



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

Well, we're making progress.
A lot of people have contributed recently. I've got a couple promising
icons for still-empty positions, such as a Panel icon and a Games icon.

The gxTar maintainer has asked for an icon. I have added a GITHNYBM
entry and I'm waiting for contributions. Bring 'em on!

Adding that pixmap to GGV's "About" dialog, I realised that not many
Gnome programs have got a logo there like they should. This is going
to be the next big task when we've got the icons done. I have thus
made a rough phase plan for my diddling with the Gnome project's
artwork:

PHASE 1: (current) Fill up the menus with icons
PHASE 2: (already beginning) Make logo pixmaps and such for the about
         widgets
PHASE 3: Overhaul application menus (make sure everything uses the
         right stock pixmap and such)

NEVERENDING TASK: Replace ugly icons by better ones, improve
                  `legibility' of icons (contrast, shape, Gnome style)

Feel free to comment on this.



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

Applet desktop entries changed and committed:
Panel "Utility" menu uses same icon as foot menu "Utility" menu;
the disk usage applet uses gnome-diskfree.png now;
the Game of Life applet installs and uses gnome-life.png.

Foot menu desktop entries changed and committed:
The Graphics submenu has got its own icon now.
Someone has made the Rubber Gnome the icon for Favourites.

Someone sent me nice graphics for GGV. There wasn't really a good icon
among them, but an absolutely gorgeous `splash screen'. It has been
added as the image for GGV's "About" dialog.


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

Main menu icons:
- Panel (candidate available)

Submenu icons:
- Applications
- Games (candidate available)
- Administration

Games:
- gTuring

Graphics:
- ggv

Internet:
- Gnome Mailman
- gftp

System:
- Shut Down or Reboot

Settings Submenus:
(10) - Multimedia
- Peripherals
- User Interface Options

Settings:
- Gnome Edit Properties
- Shut Down or Reboot

User Interface Options:
- Application Defaults
- MDI

Utilities:
- Text File Viewer (gless)
- Gnome Penguin
- guiTAR
(20) - System monitor using "foot question mark" icon
- GDict

Administration:
- GULP



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

"Add Applet" submenus:
- Amusements
- Monitors

Clocks:
- Clock
- AfterStep Clock
- Clock and Mailcheck
- JBC Binary Clock
- Another Clock

Monitors:
(30) - SwapLoad
- NetLoad

Multimedia:
- Sound Monitor

Network:
- Mailcheck
- WebControl
- Clock and Mailcheck

Utility:
- Gnome Pager
- Mini Commander
- GDict
- Tick-a-Stat
(40) - Task List
- Desk Guide
- Where am I?
- GNotes!
- QuickLaunch
- Process management (gproc)
- Clipboard


CONFLICTS
~~~~~~~~~
- Foot menu: "About" and "About Gnome..." using same icon (I've been
  told this is intentional, but it means that guname is known under two
  different icons)
- Balsa and TkRat using same icon
- Go and Gwp using same icon
(50) - GnomENIUS and gnome-calc using same icon
- Gnome PPP and Internet Submenu using same icon
- Sound properties, Multimedia submenu using same icon

[Stuff about stock pixmaps removed. This is a Phase 3 issue.]



TOTAL
~~~~~

We're down to 52 icons. Good work!

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.

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

Advice for icon makers (what did you expect? I had some in every
report!): Don't make too many icons that are just very, very small
screenshots of an application or some "photo" tilted so it looks
faintly 3D. I have got a lot of those. I'm inclined to say that I've
got too much, even. What I have got too much of for sure are ZIP drive
icons. People, for Squeaky's sake, please stop making ZIP drive
icons. Maybe we'll have some ZIP icon mass-painting contest when Phase
1 is over, but to date it's better if you make really new icons.

Imlib Properties' icon looks not exactly like something one would
associate with Imlib. It's Yet Another Blank Page Icon. If anyone has
got a better idea, please submit it.

Multimedia isn't really only about sound. In spite of this, we still
have a little speaker icon mean "Multimedia" in a couple of
places. I'd very much like to replace it there by an icon that really
means "Multimedia" and not just "Sound". We need someone with a bloody
good metaphor here...



mawa <mawa@iname.com>
-- 
Look at the community. Look at how fast they turn the crank. They know
how to create a desktop environment out of the middle of nowhere in
less than two years - how could there be a company not scared by this?
                                                               -- mawa