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OPENSTEP The One
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:02 pm Post subject: |
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To put it out there, Apple has already suggested that icon designers go above the current. They're looking at icons of 128x128 (!)
The DPI on displays is getting higher and higher every year, and interfaces are getting slicker and slicker. Even if the physical size doesn't increase, the higher resolution icons will just have more "pop" (witness the "genie" dock scaling)
That said, may people do have small screens and hate toolbars I myself flip back to small icons on my laptops, but on crazy quad head quad I totally dig on the large icons and the new set totally rocks my world.
Just my two cents, no intended suggestions there at all, so don't read in
ed |
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ovvldc Captain Naiobi
Joined: Sep 13, 2004 Posts: 2352 Location: Zürich, CH
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:04 pm Post subject: |
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As both Windows and Mac OS X are going to switch to vector images for icons, I would suggest they go with SVG icons. But only if the base size is large enough. I recall Daniel and Armando saying several times that 26x26 scales down poorly.
Myself, I am on a 1024x768 screen and 26x26 is big enough.
In any case, I wonder how many people use the small images. I recall one poster here.
Best wishes,
Oscar _________________ "What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi |
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djpimley The Anomaly (earlier version)
Joined: Jun 11, 2006 Posts: 481 Location: Great Britain
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Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:24 pm Post subject: |
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ovvldc wrote: | I recall Daniel and Armando saying several times that 26x26 scales down poorly. |
A "critical mass" of resolution is required for scaling to work properly. Scaling from 128px to 64px looks fine, scaling from 26px to 16px looks terrible - there just aren't enough pixels to manipulate to do an effect resample of the image without it becoming "smudged" beyond recognition.
Aqua native applications generally use less crowded toolbars with bigger icons (48px or 64px) so scaling down from 128px is much more feasible. When was the last time you saw something as insanely crowed as Neo's toolbars on your Mac? Even Photoshop looks neat in comparison!
But it is a shame that all the icon artwork will have to be redone some day. |
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sardisson Town Crier
Joined: Feb 01, 2004 Posts: 4588
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Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 12:06 am Post subject: |
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djpimley wrote: | Aqua native applications generally use less crowded toolbars with bigger icons (48px or 64px) |
Today the "large" size is 32px and small is 24px for Aqua toolbar icons Otherwise, I am in complete agreement with everything Daniel says above (witness all the complaints about my Finder icons not looking good at 16x16 and my insisting that Daniel make nice ones when he replaced mine )
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki |
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djpimley The Anomaly (earlier version)
Joined: Jun 11, 2006 Posts: 481 Location: Great Britain
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Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 5:59 am Post subject: |
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As discussed in the Neo 2.2.1 topic, I'm creating a set of Akua cursors for NeoOffice.
Here's the first draft:
A few cursors are unchanged, but most have been modified in some way.
A question for Patrick and Ed: Do the files have to remain black and white? They are currently 2-Bit GIF files, so even without increasing the Bit depth I can add a medium grey colour and do some internal anti-aliasing.
A question for all: What's going on with the cross.gif? Anyone know where this appears in Neo? The GIF has no transparency - the original is black on solid white as you see it above - but it looks rum to me. |
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aussie149 The Merovingian
Joined: Feb 12, 2005 Posts: 607 Location: Australia
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Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 7:42 am Post subject: |
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djpimley wrote: |
A question for all: What's going on with the cross.gif? Anyone know where this appears in Neo? . |
Daniel, I may have misunderstood your q., but isn't this the cross-hair that appears in Draw when you select to draw an arrow or some other shape?
Peter |
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pluby The Architect
Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949
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Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 8:55 am Post subject: |
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djpimley wrote: | A question for Patrick and Ed: Do the files have to remain black and white? They are currently 2-Bit GIF files, so even without increasing the Bit depth I can add a medium grey colour and do some internal anti-aliasing. |
Cursors can be color. The only requirement is that they be in GIF format.
Patrick |
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OPENSTEP The One
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
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Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 10:55 am Post subject: |
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Yes, you can do colors and greys if you like. I don't know where the cross appears, but yeah I suspect ti would be noticeable if it doesn't have the transparency. For the cross, we can always use the standard VM provided Cursor.CROSSHAIR_CURSOR instead by just removing it from the custom cursor list.
ed |
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pluby The Architect
Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949
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Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 11:20 am Post subject: |
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OPENSTEP wrote: | Yes, you can do colors and greys if you like. I don't know where the cross appears, but yeah I suspect ti would be noticeable if it doesn't have the transparency. For the cross, we can always use the standard VM provided Cursor.CROSSHAIR_CURSOR instead by just removing it from the custom cursor list. |
Specifically, the list of native cursors available to Java are here. Look at the twenty or so entries in the Field Summary section for the list.
Patrick |
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Samwise Captain Naiobi
Joined: Apr 25, 2006 Posts: 2315 Location: Montpellier, France
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Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 11:28 am Post subject: |
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But these are Sun's Java cursors. Does OS X have any native cursors that could be accessed through Java ? |
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pluby The Architect
Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949
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Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 12:22 pm Post subject: |
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Samwise wrote: | But these are Sun's Java cursors. Does OS X have any native cursors that could be accessed through Java ? |
I disagree. They should be implemented natively by the JVM.
Patrick |
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Samwise Captain Naiobi
Joined: Apr 25, 2006 Posts: 2315 Location: Montpellier, France
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Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 2:04 pm Post subject: |
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Oh I see. I stand corrected |
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OPENSTEP The One
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
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Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 2:11 pm Post subject: |
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The way the fallbacks are presently working is that we currently search for whether a custom cursor exists and, if not, we fall back on the JVM's provided cursor (e.g. system standard cursor). A good example of this is the default pointer constant.
The VM is just a shortcut for getting to some useful standard cursors in the platform appearance, such as pointer, text, wait cursor, etc. Integrating with the VM wherever possible allows us to correctly pick up any systemwide cursor customization by Unsanity's Mighty Mouse, for example, so if a system provided cursor exists it's best to reuse it.
ed |
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sardisson Town Crier
Joined: Feb 01, 2004 Posts: 4588
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Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 2:21 pm Post subject: |
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I've only ever seen a few of them in use, but I can say without a doubt these look much better than what I've seen!
One small thing: on the copy cursors, can you make the [+] (plus-in-a-box) a (+) (plus-in-a-circle) so it looks more like the Mac copy cursor?
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki |
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djpimley The Anomaly (earlier version)
Joined: Jun 11, 2006 Posts: 481 Location: Great Britain
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Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 9:51 am Post subject: |
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sardisson wrote: | can you make the [+] (plus-in-a-box) a (+) (plus-in-a-circle) so it looks more like the Mac copy cursor? |
Now that I can use colors, yes. In black and white it would have looked crappy. |
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