On Friday 26 February 2016, 07:44 wrote E. Liddell:
> On Wed, 24 Feb 2016 20:35:18 +0100 Thomas Maus wrote:
> ...
> > "http://www.ravefinity.com/".
> ...
> > The "vibrantly simple" icon set works very well vor me, for example.
> 
> Adding a new icon set isn't quite as simple as just packaging it up--we need
> to retouch some individual icons to provide, for instance, a "T"-logo menu
> icon variant.   A new set addition is currently in (admittedly, slow)
> progress.

The TDE-menu-icon is configured as a file reference and thus stays correct even 
if the icon set is switched. Activating the Ravefinity "vibrantly simple" icon 
set was as simple as installing into the right place and activating via 
control center ...

> > Some of the icon sets have problems, e.g.
> > * TDE-LoColor -- does this actually has still an use-case? your are not
> > aiming at car dashboard display, aren't you? it is very low-res, too.
> 
> Old hardware, especially stuff that isn't standard home PC hardware.  Plus,
> just leaving it there as an optional set does no harm that I'm aware of.

Yes and no. 
As an optional set it does no harm, but at least the OpenSuSE repo has very 
wide dependencies configured. When selecting "trinity-desktop" and "trinity-
desktop-applications" more or less everything was forced ...
Without previous explanation and preparation the thus provoked first contact of 
the unsuspecting "modern user" with TDE-LoColor might intimidating and not in 
the best interest of Trinity ;-) 

> > * iKons -- IMHO nice, but quite incomplete?
> 
> Which icons do you feel are missing?  It may be possible to
> create/retouch/repurpose something to fill in the gaps, but we need to know
> what they are.  (This is the "royal we", more or less--with Alexandre
> having left the project, I'm the one who'd most likely be trying to do the
> work of creating additional icons.)

Sorry, that was just an impression, I didn't follow up in depth. It might be 
caused by some inconsistencies between several desktops (and their settings), 
I was testing at the time.

> > * Tango -- only apps icons!?
> 
> Not a TDE icon theme--in fact, I think it's intended for Gnome.  TDE
> installs CrystalSVG, iKons, KDEClassic, Kids, Locolor, Slick, and (in the
> accessibility package) Mono.  Candidates for addition would normally be KDE
> icon themes, which already have icons for most TDE applications.

Yes, but Tango actually was forced as requirement of 
"trinity-kmymoney-common-1.0.5-14.0.2_1.oss421.x86_64"

> > You might ask "so what?".
> > Well, they might scare off some users, before they find the more pleasing
> > themes.
> 
> The first icon theme any new user is going to see is CrystalSVG, which is a
> complete theme with decent artwork, although in a style that isn't
> currently fashionable.  We can live with that, I think.

Depends on what the vision for Trinity is.
I imagine it difficult to widen the user base and achieve a long term 
perspective of survival, if the first impression of new users is "stale". 
(CrystalSVG is very decent artwork, no doubt)

Don't get me wrong:
I'm not arguing on the aesthetic level -- a desktop is a very personal working 
environment and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. (And I don't care, what 
personal and aesthetic decisions a user will take, because normally I don't 
have to look at them nor use them ...)

My point is ergonomics: A user might be accustomed to a specific icon set since 
over a decade, the re-cognition being essential to off-load mental workload 
and a fluent use of the desktop. The same is true of other presets like window-
shapes+behavior, button-placements, coloring and especially highlighting. 

IMNSHO the cardinal sin of GNOME and KDE4/Plasma5 is the arrogant and 
dictatorial attitude of a few negating year-long efforts of many by:
* ignoring the user's experience in their individual ergonomics
* scraping features, which were honored not only by usage but by fine-tuned 
configuration, feedback, and improvement
* underestimating the ease and speedup provided by of years of implicit 
training with a specific desktop set-up, and underestimating the effort 
changing all those reflexes (imagine changing the pedal layout in cars ...)

The question is: how to cater for different user expectations, communities and 
especially the modern, mostly impatient non-exploring approach to new SW.

That was the core question of the following proposal:

> > For discussion: What about having a kind of "tag mechanism" for artwork?
> > We could then tag artwork as "colorful", "dark theme", "light theme",
> > "monochromatic", "accesibility optimzed", "nostalgia", "kids", "modern",
> > "conversative", "flippant", etc. (multiple tags can be applied to an
> > artwork!). The user might set preferences in the control-center, which
> > limit the artwork actually presented for selection -- this would be
> > innovative, improve the harmony of the resulting setup, reduce the
> > clutter in the selection lists and would enable a harmonic co-existence
> > of old and new visual styles, without need to drop legacy artwork.
> 
> What we really need for that sort of thing is probably Planet Trinity, to
> encompass enough artwork to usefully fill out the categories without
> supersizing the artwork packages.  I've considered that from time to time
> (if only as a place to give users a clear list of what greeter, k3b, etc.
> theme packages will work with the Trinity versions of those applications),
> but I simply don't have the time to administer such a site.

au contraire, I'd prefer to have this functionality in the "tdepersonalizer" 
and control-center.
In "tdepersonalizer" as a few preconfigured fine-tuned and consistent themes 
(introduced by screenshots) plus a choice tag preset for the control-center.
In the control-center the tags act as a filter to visible icon/cursor sets etc.

If users wants to start with a specific "modern look", that is what they get -- 
and until they decide to widen their perspective by changing the filter tags.

Equally, if users specifically choose a "KDE3.5"-similar experience, that is 
what they get, and that may apply to further "classical" or even "nostalgical" 
setups.

The two of us might consider a CDE or Win98 look-alike horribly in-ergonomic, 
somebody else might feel "at home" (and would run away screaming, when forced 
to work with our specific setups ;-)


And exactly that could be the unique characteristic (and "selling point") for 
Trinity:

You will feel at home with "Trinity Desktop Environment", if you are looking 
for a classical graphical desktop -- having enough screen estate to work with 
parallel windows and driven by mouse or similar pointing devices as well as a 
full-fledged keyboard --, as it is flexible enough to support most/any/all 
workstyles.

(Some native speaker might want to hone this text, should it be found 
agreeable at all ;-)


ciao,

ThoMaus