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NeoOffice :: View topic - splashsreen contest ?
splashsreen contest ?
 
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bogdan
Guest





PostPosted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 12:51 pm    Post subject: splashsreen contest ?

I hope you will launch a splash screen and icon contest prior to launching the final NeoOffice/J. Please do that. I'll keep an eye on this forum especially for this matter. Like many others, I'm not a programmer, so I can't help on this side, but I know the Mac community has many artists willing to honor your programming efforts with their artistic skill. NeoOffice deserves this.

Otherwise, the bug that matters to me the most is the one in the Draw module: when I convert to Contour a string of text, the program stacks the individual letters one over the others. Not a fun situation, especially when I think that I do all my vector drawing work in NeoOffice, because I don't have Inkscape installed on my system. (I hope somebody will do someday a similar job of porting Inkskape natively on Mac OS X, like you did with OpenOffice:^)

Thanks a lot.

Bogdan
Romania, Europe
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foxcorner
Operator


Joined: Nov 28, 2004
Posts: 49
Location: Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 10:25 pm    Post subject:

Well, OK. But having just worked hard on artwork for the 1.1 beta (which has now been adopted for the application, the forum website (see the top of this page!), the NeoOffice website, the Wiki, etc); and having produced a new aqua application icon, with artwork that Smokey has spent time incorporating into the document icons set, I for one (and Smokey too, no doubt) would be sad to see that work thrown away when 1.1 is released.

It doesn't make sense for this newly approved and adopted artwork to hang around *only* for the beta phase.

My own preference would be for the art to stay as it is until at least 1.2, and preferably a somewhat-further-on release, whatever that may be.

The new artwork is a big improvement on the original material, and from what I've read in the forums, people are pleased to have it. In particular, Ed and Patrick (our fearless lead developers) have approved it. I based the new ship exactly on the lines of the old one, to give strong continuity to Ed's original choice of image.

As for a splash-image competition, I know that gimp.org have just held one, which makes a lot of sense for the Gimp, because of course the Gimp's splash image should show off what the Gimp can do. Furthermore, the Gimp's competition is pitched at the Gimp user community, so there are (of course) lots of artists. For NeoOffice/J, there's no such correlation between the application's capabilities and the splash image, so having a competition isn't as relevant.

I agree with you that there are artistic folks out there who want to enhance NeoOffice/J - that's exactly what I wanted to do when I created the artwork! For a future release it'll be good to change the artwork, but let's not throw away at 1.1-release what we've just decided on at 1.1-beta!

Regards,
Dan
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 11:25 pm    Post subject:

foxcorner wrote:
My own preference would be for the art to stay as it is until at least 1.2, and preferably a somewhat-further-on release, whatever that may be.


I agree. I like the new artwork and, IIRC, there was lots of review and discussion among the regular posters in this forum before we agreed to these images and icons.

Patrick
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bogdan
Guest





PostPosted: Fri Jan 07, 2005 5:57 am    Post subject:

I appreciate you took time with the icons and the splash screen to make them more colorful and Aquafied. They really are better than the previous ones. Excuse me if I made a mistake and the time is not right for it.

Anyway, the idea of a contest came up when I made my own splash screen for NeoOffice, and I thought it would get adrenaline up to have a contest to post it. (Of course it looks great, what were you thinking? :^)

Yeah, I admit that The Gimp, Blender, etc, need such contests to prove their creative power, but it's not only that. Every program needs to project a pro image in it's fight with commercialware, and Neo needs that, too. OpenStep wrote somewhere a line sounding like "...Microsoft, the company we will soon destroy". Uh, those are big plans for the future!

I have no icon editor (yet), so I'm useless when it comes to icons, but I still expect a contest for a splash screen someday, maybe for 1.2, like foxcorner said. Wouldn't hurt, especially if you say "open source" also means to open doors for every possible contributor out there.

best regards

Bogdan
(not a programmer)
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foxcorner
Operator


Joined: Nov 28, 2004
Posts: 49
Location: Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Fri Jan 07, 2005 9:36 am    Post subject:

Hi Bogdan,

You're right. Open source does mean it's open to contributions from the community. After all, that's how my artwork got in there. Wink

My proposal, then, is this:

* At some point, when Ed and Patrick decide it, they should announce a splash-screen competition.

I think Ed and Patrick should control this, because Ed is the owner of the NeoOffice brand, and Patrick is the one who has to do the work of incorporating new artwork. So, when they judge that it's time to refresh the artwork (at 1.2, 1.3, 2.0, whatever), then I recommend that they launch a competition.

Note that it's not just the splash-screen that needs artwork. Here's the list of images I and Smokey produced for this refresh:

* The splash image

* The aqua application icon (which has also been used for the Wiki) (also used (or will be) for VersionTracker, macupdate, etc)

* The document-specific icons (thanks Smokey!)

* The "About" image, which Patrick also uses for his NeoOffice pages on planamesa.com

* An image for this forum site (on this page Smile)

* I also did an aquified version of the About image, which is now on the Wiki entry, "what is NeoOffice/J".

So... there's more work than just the splash image itself.

Dan
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jakeOSX
Ninja
Ninja


Joined: Aug 12, 2003
Posts: 1373

PostPosted: Fri Jan 07, 2005 10:45 am    Post subject:

i think we should have the ship shooting clippy with canonballs. =)

we did just get the new artwork, and should stick with it for a while so that there is an image in people's mind when they think 'neooffice' (other than Ed and Patrick in trench coats ala Pulp Fiction, but that may be just me)

now, an idea would be to have an icon contest for all those little icons in the program itself...
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sardisson
Town Crier
Town Crier


Joined: Feb 01, 2004
Posts: 4588

PostPosted: Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:51 am    Post subject:

jakeOSX wrote:
now, an idea would be to have an icon contest for all those little icons in the program itself...


Indeed! Smile But we have to figure out how many/which ones and, more importantly, where they live in the source. And then make icons within the limitations of the OOo iconography (BMPs) or get Ed to hack on the ximian stuff so we can use PNGs with alpha transparency that will sync with the background color....

I almost sent Patrick PNGs of the document icons for the Options dialogue, but time was short and I never got around to verifying that the files I thought I needed to change were the ones (and where they live in the source)....

Smokey

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"[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
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bogdan
Guest





PostPosted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 2:47 am    Post subject:

Hi everyone,

Foxcorner, I agree with your proposals, too, and thanks for the listing. It's good to make things clear, and I can see that there's more work to be done than the splash.

About creating icons:
I said that I don't have an icon creator. Well, there's good news for others like me: even a non-programmer couldn't stay away from programming, so Saturday I installed the Xcode tools, compiled a couple of the examples...(ok, all of them), and now I have icns Composer up and running. I can make icons. And everybody can do the same.

About Alpha transparency in general:
Making the transition to PNG for all the items listed by Foxcorner, and for the "little icons" of the program, would open new possibilities.

Premature, but necessary question:
I like the idea of "Bringing the power of OOo to Mac OS X", which, if I'm not wrong, the ship image is suggesting. Is the above idea "hardwired" to the ship? A more abstract image in the same vein would be allowed? My "customized" splash is like that. And I suppose the dark blue of the loading bar can be changed if needed, moved (and maybe even put vertically?).

Have a nice week,

Bogdan
Romania
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foxcorner
Operator


Joined: Nov 28, 2004
Posts: 49
Location: Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 9:21 am    Post subject:

bogdan wrote:
Premature, but necessary question:
I like the idea of "Bringing the power of OOo to Mac OS X", which, if I'm not wrong, the ship image is suggesting. Is the above idea "hardwired" to the ship? A more abstract image in the same vein would be allowed?

No, it's not hard-wired. The ship was chosen somewhat arbitrarily by Ed. And until this 1.1b release, the tag "Bringing the power of OOo to Mac OS X" wasn't even present. Previously, it said stuff about being a prototype. So yes, in theory, something other than a ship would do. In my view, though, I think there's a lot that can be done while still retaining a sailing ship. I like the fact that something old and romantic is associated with this app. I'd be sorry to see the sailing ship replaced with, say, a space-ship. Cheesy!

It is possible to do a futuristic sailing ship. Have a look at good old Rodney Matthews:
http://dolik.wz.cz/data/galerie/rodney%20matthews/etherstream.jpg
(Of course, a little splash image would require something with less detail.)

bogdan wrote:
My "customized" splash is like that.

Don't get too excited! It could be months or even a year before Ed and Patrick call a competition, if that's the way they want to go.

bogdan wrote:
And I suppose the dark blue of the loading bar can be changed if needed, moved (and maybe even put vertically?).

No - the blue progress bar can't be changed. That's in OOo code. We're stuck with it. Also stuck with the size of the splash image.

Dan
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foxcorner
Operator


Joined: Nov 28, 2004
Posts: 49
Location: Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 9:24 am    Post subject:

Here's another Rodney Matthews one. I had this on my wall when I was a teenager. Smile

http://www.rodneymatthews.com/gfx/icespirit.jpg

Dan
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jakeOSX
Ninja
Ninja


Joined: Aug 12, 2003
Posts: 1373

PostPosted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:57 pm    Post subject:

that is a cool shot of the iceboat... but i am way too much of an engineer, i started fixing it in my head =) you know, to make it faster, more manueverable, things like that...

which i'll relate all back to neooffice... um. soon.
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ovvldc
Captain Naiobi


Joined: Sep 13, 2004
Posts: 2352
Location: Zürich, CH

PostPosted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 2:31 pm    Post subject:

jakeOSX wrote:
that is a cool shot of the iceboat... but i am way too much of an engineer, i started fixing it in my head =) you know, to make it faster, more manueverable, things like that....


Smile. Wonder what you'll come up with.

I personally prefer modern sailingboats, not scifi ones.. Isn't there a nice competition yacht out there? But in any case, the current ship is slowly beginning to grow on me. Never thought I'd say it..

_________________
"What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
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