[HIG] Stock icons for toolbars

[Tuomas Kuosmanen <tigert ximian com>]

Hello!

We (I and Jakub) at Ximian have been working on a set of new "stock icons" for Gnome2. The work is progressing nicely, and we want to get the stuff into GNOME CVS as soon as possible so we can get some feedback from you, since you people know a lot about the usability things such as metaphors etc..

Note: I try to do a web page of those icons as soon as I can so you can see them, will let you know once I have it up.

Now, I have an important question: Do we have a list of "default" toolbar icons anywhere? I mean, does the GNOME libs API have some "fixed set" of toolbar icons that is guaranteed to be available? I know gnome-libs/libgnomeui/ 1.4 has this kind of thing. I tried to look into MacOS HI guides, but I couldnt find anything there either.

So far we seem to have something like this on libgnomeui 1.4:
> add
> align_center
> align_justify
> align_left
> align_right
> attach
> book_blue
> book_green
> book_open
> book_red
> book_yellow
> bottom
> button_apply
> button_cancel
> button_close
> button_no
> button_ok
> button_yes
> cdrom
> clear
> close
> colorselector
> convert
> copy
> cut
> down_arrow
> exec
> exit
> font
> first
> help
> home
> index
> jump_to
> last
> left_arrow
> line_in
> mail
> mail_compose
> mail_forward
> mail_receive
> mail_reply
> mail_send
> menu_about
> menu_blank
> menu_scores
> mic
> multiple_file
> new
> not
> open
> paste
> preferences
> print
> properties
> redo
> refresh
> remove
> revert
> right_arrow
> save
> save_as
> scores
> search
> search_replace
> spellcheck
> stop
> table_borders
> table_fill
> text_bold
> text_bulleted_list
> text_indent
> text_italic
> text_numbered_list
> text_strikeout
> text_underline
> text_unindent
> timer
> timer_stopped
> top
> trash
> trash_full
> undelete
> undo
> up_arrow
> volume
> midi
>     
I think we should have a standard set of these, especially since those icons are themeable, and we definitely want all themes to implement at least the common set. The above list is a good starter if there are no better ones around, but it definitely needs fixing, like I really think "preferences" should not be a button on a toolbar, but rather be in a menu etc.. Also I am sure we are missing some that could well be there..

So any ideas as of "what kind of a set of these we should include?" would be helpful. I will then hack the remaining icons needed with Jimmac. This should be a very generic set that is useful for most applications, but it should be complete too, since we currently have a lot of software that is just abusing one icon in a totally wrong context because there is no icon for some function and the author cannot do icons him/herself.

Also we plan to create 16x16 pixel versions for menus, so those dont look bad when scaled. Is this possible with the gnome2 stuff?

Best wishes,

Tuomas

Tuomas Kuosmanen    Art Director    Ximian, Inc. tigert ximian com    www.ximian.com