For the future.

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In the past few days I have been working in so many different things I have a hard time keeping track of all of them, but all of them are moving in a reasonable pace, and its great seeing all the pieces falling in to place one by one.
One thing that as been bugging me for the longest time, is the fact that plasmoids need icons, and to be honest I was not to excited about doing icons for all of them, still I was not happy about the fact that they were hijacking oxygen icons and creating a visual mess were one would not know if that was the plasmoid or the application the icon belonged to.

So we really needed to fix this issue.... today I think I found a possible answer, the basic idea is that all plasma apps (plasmoids) use the same base icon same shape, they can simply make one by placing an image under it and cropping it correctly. We could bend the rules a bit and in some cases place meaningful objects on top of it like a finger a arrow etc. but still keeping the basic shape. That way we will avoid confusion, make it easy for plasmoid developers to get an icon, and have a kick ass looking set of icons.


Well this is the basic idea, my first implementation of it
Its not finished and its just the basic shape still a long way to go, but think its really "clicable", witch is important for touch based devices were I see this little applications to have the brightest future..

Comments

Unknown said…
Are you suggesting that e.g. "ktorrent plasma applet" will not use ktorrent icon anymore, but ktorrent icon in a bubble or what's that thingy..?
5:42 PM
Pinheiro said…
@Milan yeap
5:53 PM
Michael Gauthier said…
One of the key ways to distinguish icons is their shape. If all icons are the same shape, they will be harder to distinguish at a glance.
6:05 PM
Anonymous said…
I think the bubble looks good. Its sort of like what Apple does on the iPhone with the icons.
I also don't think it is that important that all icons will have the same shape since you only see them when adding the plasmoid to a container.
8:56 PM
Matija "hook" Šuklje said…
Hehe, nice, the bubble icons are coming back ;)
10:45 PM
Burke said…
Hm, that remembers me of the Mockups of AnniC's new Add-Plasmoids-dialogue, in which she used circles as a placeholder for the plasmoids.

So in fact the idea of a bubble seems to be a bit older now.;)
11:45 PM
Unknown said…
I really don't like that. If I have more plasmoids in panel, this would look really really horrible. I want plasmoid icons to look same as standard icons, please don't ruin that.
12:24 AM
Pinheiro said…
@Burke yeap I have worked with Ana on that, never said the idea was new what is new is the base image that will convey the imagery.
12:27 AM
Hans said…
@Burke:
Same thing I thought when I read this post as well. :)

@Pinheiro:
I'm a little confused - is this only going to affect the icons in the "Add Widgets" dialog, or also icons in e.g. panels?

If it's the first, I'm not completely against it (not completely sure I like it either). The latter - no.
2:54 AM
Anonymous said…
Could you show an example, please? Thanks!
3:12 AM
Pinheiro said…
@Hans the "icons" in panels are just what the plasmoid choses to be in fact they are not icons its just that the plasmoid chose to look that way in the panel it could be what ever he decides to be.
this is for launching proposes.
4:24 AM
Anonymous said…
What???

I do not like the idea, please do not change the icons
4:03 PM
Pinheiro said…
@KPeter what icons, plasmoids have almost no icon, all they do is hijack oxygen icons that create confusion,
4:43 PM
nixternal said…
I like it, but what I really want to know is this....where do I get that wallpaper? Quit holding out :)
8:25 PM
Anonymous said…
A fun addition to the icon would be a "distortion" map, so the glass bubble ('lens') would distort the background texture before the overlay image would be applied.
4:17 PM
Pinheiro said…
@jimmac yeah need to set up something like that, not sure I'm to happy with this base element dough :(, think its back to the drawing board.
11:01 AM
Anonymous said…
I don't like it.
8:27 PM
bztdlinux said…
A base icon would be interesting, but this is by far not what it should be. Something this "loud" would look very repetitive in the Add Widgets dialog (practically the only place the icons are seen) and would distract from the actual plasmoid icon.

I would be okay with a more subtle background, or possibly an overlay like what is done for links or compressed files.

Also, feel free to prove me wrong, but I can't possibly imagine a distortion map looking good.
4:47 PM
Anonymous said…
Good job dude..
thanks..

aan
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