Unfavorable Distro-Watch Report

[David Zeuthen]

On Mon, 2007-02-05 at 23:30 +0100, Chitlesh GOORAH wrote:
> On 2/5/07, David Zeuthen wrote:
> > So I think Qt/KDE, or the Fedora packaging needs to be fixed instead and
> > I don't think it's that hard. Chitlesh, any chance you can look into
> > this? Thanks.
> 
> Hello,
> Surely I'll have a look in the upcoming days. 

Thanks.

> However we still have to
> consider that in kde we have more possibilities to change the size of
> kicker in whatever size we want. Hence we have to ship different icon
> sizes.

Sure and we already do; e.g. 16x16, 24x24 and 48x48 for Echo. We could
possibly include larger icons if needed but I don't think so. Perhaps we
add them on a case by case basis.

I'm not sure KDE has more options than GNOME or the other way around but
that's unimportant. All this works fine in GNOME; GTK+ and other
libraries just scale the icons so I really think this is a bug with Qt
and/or KDE and/or the packaging. Of course, if some app requires a
128x128 icon it's going to look bad as we scale (jagged) but common
wisdom would say there a few apps like these around. 

> I have also noticed that using the ctrl_key+mouse_wheel to change the
> size of the contents on any folders (accessibility), the icons change
> if the related icons are of particular size aren't included.

This is not really accessibility per se - a11y in general is more
concerned with "Large Contrast", "Big Print" themes, screen readers,
screen magnifiers and so forth but of course also with themes for people
with impaired eyesight. 

The ability to change icon sizes manually has really nothing to do with
accessibility and if you think about it.. it shouldn't.. users will not
be able to see the small icons _in the first place_ so we cannot presume
that he knows some magic ctrl+key + mousewheel combination. That would
be insane. The right answer is of course to make sure impaired users
have the right theme / assistive technologies set up (e.g. "Big Print" +
screen reader) before the log in.

If Konqueror (which I presume is what is responding to ctrl_key
+mouse_wheel) doesn't scale the icon it sounds like a bug with KDE. This
works fine in e.g. Nautilus and if the icons are not available in such a
large size it will be scaled (and look jagged but what can you do).

> there are other apps who need more sizes too
> see https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-art-list/2007-January/msg00151.html

Usually apps ship icons in the hicolor theme and sometimes these blend
in nicely so we as a distro don't have to redo them (this is especially
true with things such as Tango as the Tango people have been aggressive
in making apps use icons that blends in nice). 

If that isn't the case we can always create more icons in Echo; time /
footprint is the only limiting factor.

> Everytime when representing fedora on any event, there is always one
> disabled person who ask me about the options that fedora ship in terms
> of accessibility. I wish I could now say that fedora can be an OS for
> them too, instead of being speechless in front of them.

Accessibility, including a11y themes works great in GNOME so why don't
you tell them to just use GNOME? :-)

(But you probably meant ctrl_key+mouse_wheel which is not what
accessibility is about.... Btw I know accessibility doesn't work in KDE
because I'm on the weekly FSG a11y conference calls and I interact with
KDE a11y people too. They're working on it though.)

     David