Icon Theme

[Máirín Duffy]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> David Nielsen wrote:
>>> Before they do (and I have 
>> no doubt that they will eventually but it might take years) this is 
>> still a perfectly valid concern, especially since all but one of those 
>> apps are in our default desktop.
> 
> It is a valid concern, yes but forcing one theme style is not the way to 
> move ahead. It is very important that themes should be easily 
> replaceable all across the desktop environment and applications. If not, 
> thats a bug and should not used as a argument to adopt one theme.

+1

>> I fully support the naming effort but it's not there yet so we need to 
>> be careful, we should also leverage the great work that has already 
>> been done by some of the FLOSS communitys finest artists, not to 
>> mention the large team they have already built to work on the Tango 
>> project.
> 
> If the Fedora art team wants to move ahead and adopt a different style, 
> they should be encouraged and allowed to do that.

This was a big point brought up at the GNOME Boston Summit a few weeks 
ago, and Andy Fitzsimon brought a really interesting idea to the table:

http://live.gnome.org/AwesomeArtShit

('SVG Crack' section)

Take a look at the monitor variations on the right. Same SVG, graphics 
generated by applying different CSS to the SVG.

Basically we could use the Tango SVGs as an 'upstream' and using 
stylesheets apply different transformations to the Tango SVGs to create 
whichever look we like. In cases where we want to change the icon 
entirely (e.g. for the Trash icon) we can override it in the icon theme.

Andy I'm sure can explain more of the technical details behind this. But 
I feel this is a better use of time and resources - developing a look 
via stylesheet applied to upstream icons - rather than starting from 
scratch. We'll still be able to have a distinct visual identity for 
Fedora, we'll still be able to override particular icons from upstream 
if we feel the need, but! We'll *also* be able to join in the upstream 
Tango effort and add our resources to the already pretty large pool of 
talent in the Tango team and help upstream as well as get we would like 
done as well. The Fedora art folks can join the wider FOSS art community 
and learn from and interact with many of the seasoned pros there.

Unfortunately, this would mean some manual grunt work in arranging the 
already-existing Tango icons, some minor modifications to Inkscape to 
make it easier to make these mods  (I think probably the equivalent 
would be adding classes to html elements to apply a stylesheet.)

Overall though I think it's an awesome idea, it solves a lot of 
problems, it's do-able, and it's very innovative and cool! There is a 
lot of power in SVG we haven't taken advantage of yet and this would be 
a great way for Fedora to lead the way!

~m