D15866: Reduce emblem size for very small icons to prevent obscuring too much of the icon

[Nathaniel Graham]

ngraham created this revision.
ngraham added reviewers: Frameworks, Dolphin, VDG.
Herald added a project: Frameworks.
Herald added a subscriber: kde-frameworks-devel.
ngraham requested review of this revision.

REVISION SUMMARY
An icon's emblem can take up 25% of the total icon area in certain cases, which obscures enough of the icon that it may become hard to tell what it is. This is especially noticeable with 16x16 and 32x32 icons in Dolphin's Places Panel. See T9740#162147 <https://phabricator.kde.org/T9740#162147> for examples.

This patch adjusts the calculation so that the emblem never takes up more then 18.75% of the total area of an icon, even at small sizes. As a result, the icons are less obscured by their emblems.

TEST PLAN
[images go here]

[images depict the new hard drive icon introduced with D15853 <https://phabricator.kde.org/D15853>]

REPOSITORY
R302 KIconThemes

BRANCH
smaller-emblems-at-small-sizes (branched from master)

REVISION DETAIL
https://phabricator.kde.org/D15866

AFFECTED FILES
src/kiconloader.cpp

To: ngraham, #frameworks, #dolphin, #vdg
Cc: kde-frameworks-devel, michaelh, ngraham, bruns

[Nathaniel Graham]

ngraham added a task: T9740: Improve disk presentation in the Places panel.

REPOSITORY
R302 KIconThemes

REVISION DETAIL
https://phabricator.kde.org/D15866

To: ngraham, #frameworks, #dolphin, #vdg
Cc: kde-frameworks-devel, michaelh, ngraham, bruns

[Nathaniel Graham]

ngraham edited the summary of this revision.
ngraham edited the test plan for this revision.

REPOSITORY
R302 KIconThemes

REVISION DETAIL
https://phabricator.kde.org/D15866

To: ngraham, #frameworks, #dolphin, #vdg
Cc: kde-frameworks-devel, michaelh, ngraham, bruns

[Noah Davis]

ndavis added a comment.


The emblem for the 16px version is too small to read. What if instead of the emblem being on top of the icon, it was off to the side? Then it wouldn't matter what size the emblem is as long as it looks good where it is.

REPOSITORY
R302 KIconThemes

REVISION DETAIL
https://phabricator.kde.org/D15866

To: ngraham, #frameworks, #dolphin, #vdg
Cc: ndavis, kde-frameworks-devel, michaelh, ngraham, bruns

[Kai Uwe Broulik]

broulik added a comment.


Did you test this with other icon sets, such as Oxygen? It may work with SVG ones but not pixel-based iconsets. Oxygen only has 8x8 emblems.

REPOSITORY
R302 KIconThemes

REVISION DETAIL
https://phabricator.kde.org/D15866

To: ngraham, #frameworks, #dolphin, #vdg
Cc: broulik, ndavis, kde-frameworks-devel, michaelh, ngraham, bruns

[Nathaniel Graham]

ngraham added a comment.

Post by Noah Davis
The emblem for the 16px version is too small to read.
Did you test this with other icon sets, such as Oxygen? It may work with SVG ones but not pixel-based iconsets. Oxygen only has 8x8 emblems.

It seems we have a problem, then:

- 8x8 emblems take up 25% of a 16x16 icon's space, rendering the icon difficult to distinguish
- 6x6 emblems are unreadable and/or look bad (for raster icons that get scaled)

Suggestions?

In D15866#334519 <https://phabricator.kde.org/D15866#334519>, @ndavis wrote:
What if instead of the emblem being on top of the icon, it was off to the side? Then it wouldn't matter what size the emblem is as long as it looks good where it is.

You mean like this?

[Icon] [emblem] Label

REPOSITORY
R302 KIconThemes

REVISION DETAIL
https://phabricator.kde.org/D15866

To: ngraham, #frameworks, #dolphin, #vdg
Cc: broulik, ndavis, kde-frameworks-devel, michaelh, ngraham, bruns

[Noah Davis]

ndavis added a comment.

Post by Nathaniel Graham
You mean like this?
[Icon] [emblem] Label

Yes, like that.

REPOSITORY
R302 KIconThemes

REVISION DETAIL
https://phabricator.kde.org/D15866

To: ngraham, #frameworks, #dolphin, #vdg
Cc: broulik, ndavis, kde-frameworks-devel, michaelh, ngraham, bruns

[Nathaniel Graham]

ngraham added a comment.


Hmm, that would only make sense for small icons. If we implement it for small icons but keep the overlay style for larger icons, then there will be an odd change if and when the size is increased, and the label will jump horizontally. Also, since this patch is for `KIconLoader`, it would affect more than just Dolphin's Places panel; such a change would also affect list views in Dolphin and the file dialogs when using small icons. Not sure that would be a good idea.

I wonder if maybe we should redesign the emblems that currently have a white symbol inside a colored background shape so that their 8x8 versions are just a colored symbol with no background shape. The idea would be to remove both some of the visual complexity that can get lost at small sizes and also the large background that obscures so much of the icon.

If we do that, for the smallest icons it might be feasible to keep the emblem sized at 8x8 because they would be more visually clear and obscure less of the icon.

Thoughts?

REPOSITORY
R302 KIconThemes

REVISION DETAIL
https://phabricator.kde.org/D15866

To: ngraham, #frameworks, #dolphin, #vdg
Cc: broulik, ndavis, kde-frameworks-devel, michaelh, ngraham, bruns

[Christoph Feck]

cfeck added a comment.


The emblem convers important information; it should be clearly visible. Scaling to size 6 or 12 would only make sense if our icon sets ship those sizes for emblem icons.

REPOSITORY
R302 KIconThemes

REVISION DETAIL
https://phabricator.kde.org/D15866

To: ngraham, #frameworks, #dolphin, #vdg
Cc: cfeck, broulik, ndavis, kde-frameworks-devel, michaelh, ngraham, bruns

[Nathaniel Graham]

ngraham added a comment.

The emblem conveys important information; it should be clearly visible. Scaling to size 6 or 12 would only make sense if our icon sets ship those sizes for emblem icons.

I would argue that at 8x8, it's really hard to understand what some of the emblems are or mean. This is especially true of the mounted and unmounted emblems that we're talking about for the purpose of the Places Panel (see T9740 <https://phabricator.kde.org/T9740>).

The icon also conveys important information and should be clearly visible. The problem here is that currently, the emblem can take up 25% of the icon's area when the icon is 16x16 or 32x32, which can render the icon itself difficult to distinguish. For icons that don't use the full space, the emblem can take up even more space.

For example here's an 8x8 size emblem on top of a 16x16 size icon that doesn't use all of its available space: F6297884: image.png <https://phabricator.kde.org/F6297884>

That's just visual gibberish.

It's a hard problem to solve unless we put on our thinking caps and come up with some genius idea. :)

REPOSITORY
R302 KIconThemes

REVISION DETAIL
https://phabricator.kde.org/D15866

To: ngraham, #frameworks, #dolphin, #vdg
Cc: cfeck, broulik, ndavis, kde-frameworks-devel, michaelh, ngraham, bruns

[Andrew Crouthamel]

acrouthamel added a comment.


What are the different possible emblems that can be applied automatically by the mount process?

What if for small sizes, we just use simple shapes and colors. Like a green circle for mounted, and a yellow triangle for something else, and a red square for another state?

I mention combining shapes and colors, for those who are color-blind.

REPOSITORY
R302 KIconThemes

REVISION DETAIL
https://phabricator.kde.org/D15866

To: ngraham, #frameworks, #dolphin, #vdg
Cc: acrouthamel, cfeck, broulik, ndavis, kde-frameworks-devel, michaelh, ngraham, bruns

[Nathaniel Graham]

ngraham added a comment.


It's possible to have tiny symbolic emblems that still convey information. Here's a screenshot from my Dropbox folder in Dolphin, with 16x16 icons plus the tiny little emblems that Dropbox adds:

F6297941: 8 emblem on 16 icon.png <https://phabricator.kde.org/F6297941>

Those emblems are technically 8x8, but the outermost pixels nearly transparent, so they're essentially 6x6. Since they're round rather than square, even more of the base icon is visible. Yet they're still perfectly distinguishable.

Perhaps all that's needed here is to make the emblems a bit smaller within their 8x8 box, and to round the corners of the square ones more.

REPOSITORY
R302 KIconThemes

REVISION DETAIL
https://phabricator.kde.org/D15866

To: ngraham, #frameworks, #dolphin, #vdg
Cc: acrouthamel, cfeck, broulik, ndavis, kde-frameworks-devel, michaelh, ngraham, bruns

[Christoph Feck]

cfeck added a comment.


I would prefer that.

REPOSITORY
R302 KIconThemes

REVISION DETAIL
https://phabricator.kde.org/D15866

To: ngraham, #frameworks, #dolphin, #vdg
Cc: acrouthamel, cfeck, broulik, ndavis, kde-frameworks-devel, michaelh, ngraham, bruns

[Nathaniel Graham]

ngraham abandoned this revision.
ngraham added a comment.


No longer needed with D15935 <https://phabricator.kde.org/D15935> (or at least, the pressure is off).

REPOSITORY
R302 KIconThemes

REVISION DETAIL
https://phabricator.kde.org/D15866

To: ngraham, #frameworks, #dolphin, #vdg
Cc: acrouthamel, cfeck, broulik, ndavis, kde-frameworks-devel, michaelh, ngraham, bruns