Icon Theme

[John (J5) Palmieri]

On Tue, 2006-11-28 at 17:39 +0000, Leo wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> The Tango project has become the one true style guide for free
> software theming. 

That is a bold statement.

> A few heavy weight apps such as gnome, inkscape,
> gimp and openoffice.org are or will be using tango style icons. The
> project's developers are of high profile and the quality of the icons
> is without doubt the best.

I can argue that the quality is not the best but it is all a matter of
tastes and this is a divisive argument that no one can win.  The real
problem I have with Tango is it ties the hands of the artists to this
one style and then the proponents go around saying "shame on you for
doing something different, this is the style the whole community has
chosen" which is in fact not the case.  KDE for instance has their
Oxygen style which IMHO allows a bit more artistic license.

>  I followed a few Tango_Fridays¹ in irc
> #tango and was much impressed. As you can see in Tango_Fridays¹, more
> and more upstream apps will be adopting their icons.

This is a better argument for going with Tango but not completely
compelling.

> Today I visited the EchoDevelopment² after a few months, my feeling
> was not good. But my biggest concerns is that although Echo is using
> tango naming specs, its style (perspective, color palette etc) is
> different. This will put Fedora in a situation as Bluecurve does -
> inconsistency across the desktop. Inconsistency will definitely
> compromise usability.

Echo isn't done yet.  I think it is too early to tell.  This argument is
like saying hey, lets not try anything new and just accept whatever
people throw us.  If in the end Tango turns out the way to go I'm not
ruling it out but I like the direction Echo has taken and perhaps there
will be ways to meld the two.

> So what's the way out? Changing Echo to fit into the universe of tango
> style icons? Put Echo on hold and use tango for Fedora 7? Please
> comment.

Standards for standards sake is not the way to go.  I think we move
forward and see where things fall.  If there is a team who wants to
experiment with making Echo fit with Tango that is cool.  If there is a
team that wants to experiment with theming Tango to feel for Fedoraish
that is cool too.  Personally I think we should have had competing
styles from the get go.  Free markets and all.

-- 
John (J5) Palmieri <johnp at redhat.com>