216364 - Mozilla Cross-platforom applications Icon Guidelines document

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Developer Documentation Graveyard :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Brian 'netdragon' Bober]

In bugs like bug 99380, there is much talk about what is needed for icons, but
its mixed in with submissions of example icons, etc. We need to have a bug for
talking about what the requirements/guidelines should be on every platform, and
create a document that describes this in HTML.

A skeleton would be as follows:

[Introduction]

[Icon Matrix]

[Copying Icons between platforms such as Linux and Windows]
    [Mac users will not a different look and feel for icons]

[Mac Icons Requirements and Design Recommendation]

[Windows Icons Requirements and Design Recommendation]
    [Windows XP icons]

[Unix Requirements and Design Recommendation]

[Hacking]
    [Windows icon code]
    [Unix icon code]
    [Mac icon code]



A good start:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwxp/html/winxpicons.asp
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwue/html/ch14f.asp
http://greg.tcp.com/mozilla/ui/Outside/introduction.html

Comment 1

[Brian 'netdragon' Bober]

Please don't discuss in this bug anything but what should go into the document.
Please also try to keep the number of comments down to a min (write everything
you want to say as one comment, if possible).

Blocks iconography issues - bug 29303

Comment 2

[Jez]

This seems unnecessary to me.  Filetype association icons are a bit of a
Windows-only thing; Mac uses the program's icon, and I'm not sure most Linux
variants use any custom icon.  This would just get bloated and no one would ever
use it.  I think the existing icons in the source tree should give enough of an
idea how to design them, they're self-explanatory.

Comment 3

[Brian 'netdragon' Bober]

This is not only for filetype association icons, but for application icons, etc.
X Windows does allow you to associate files within Windows Managers and we
should at least provide icons so the user can do it manually.

> I think the existing icons in the source tree should give enough of an
> idea how to design them, they're self-explanatory.

The icons in the source tree are inconsistant. Just look at mozilla.ico or
firebird's ico. mozilla.ico even has a 256 color device image (something you
said was bad) and many developers have said in other bugs to put in 256 color
images. So, obviously we do need something so we don't get these inconsistencies.

You mentioned the 256 color device image overriding true-color icons on some
Windows OSes. Can you please provide some details on what operating systems it
affects?

Comment 4

[Jez]

Well, I was going off a comment made in Microangelo's help, that stated that
Windows doesn't recognise the difference between 256 color icons and true color
icons of the same size.  XP icons do appear to be identifiable alongside true
color icons, not surprisingly, in Windows XP.

There's also the fact that 256 color icons can never really work.  They almost
certainly will use a custom palette (I don't think there's much of a standard
256 color palette), and in a 256 color mode system, that'd mean they'd need the
whole palette dedicated to them.  Clearly, in an OS with many an icon to
display, as well as plenty of other stuff, they can't have a dedicated palette.
 Better to let the truecolor image just degrade.

Comment 5

[Brian 'netdragon' Bober]

So in a 256 color image on an 8 bit color display, it will try to match palette
entries as closely as possible to system colors, and that's basically the same
thing as dithering a true color image.

Comment 6

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

Re: for comment #2, for the record, Mac does have filetype association icons (on
OS X anyway). You can also set which app opens a given filetype by default by
using the Get Info panel on any file of that type. 

Comment 7

[Brian 'netdragon' Bober]

Gnome also has associations (but it still needs work).

Comment 8

[Daniel Wang]

wontfix. The VIT will handle the icon design (bug 231365)