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Ideas | Propositions

Subjects Author Language Messages Last message
[Locked] indicators
coz English 9 fabounet [Read]
09 July 2008 à 03:10

coz, Tuesday 22 April 2008 à 06:29


Subscription date : 25 March 2008
Messages : 611
Bonjour...Hello all...ciao a tutti....
A few of us were playing with indicators in svg and found several things that bothered us.
If the does not have some transparency or no extra transparent space below it it tends to obscure the icon.
Also if resizing an icon to have extra transparent space below to show the indicator it is stretched horizontally, out of proportion.
My question is.... is it possible to have the indicator drawn on the dock itself??
This will allow independent adjustment, I am assuming, as well as the possibility of making indicators that will not be affected by the animation of the icon itself.
It is just an idea and wanted to know the possibilities and and problems this might cause.

Also what about animated icons? I mean the icon actually being animated when not in use. i persoanlly wouldnt want this but it was brought up once while we were discussing it. It was also brought up to have animated indicators. Something like my avitar, and animated flame for example.

coz

Fyda, Tuesday 22 April 2008 à 10:20


Subscription date : 23 March 2008
Messages : 11
Hello,

I was part of the discussion on #cairo-dock with coz. After reviewing the options, these are my points (some responses to the problems posed by coz, and some more suggestions):

1) It's easy for the indicator to be obscured by the icon. Thus, icons must be designed with extra transparent space at the bottom. But I think the Vertical offset value for the indicator partially solves this, anyway.

2) Resizing the canvas size of an icon (to add extra transparent space) is a cumbersome method, because it requires changing the Icon size at rest values. Since that value is a global value, this means editing all the other icons, too...

3) Right now, the rendering of indicators is awkward. Why does the indicator jump up with the launcher for the Bounce animation? Why doesn't the indicator have a reflection like the icon does (at least, as an option)? It seems to me that, depending on what the indicator depicted, it is either A) part of the icon (attached to the icon), or B) apart from the icon (attached to the dock).

Examples of indicator type A: a halo floating above the icon; a ribbon draped across the icon

Examples of indicator type B:
the default glow below the icon; an arrow/triangle pointing up at the icon (à la AWN)

I suggest that both be possible.

4) Animated icons/indicators: I would personally find constant animations too distracting/annoying. But it is interesting to think of indicators which may animate on mouse-hover or when being created (ie. when a launcher binds to an opened instance of its app).

And another thing, which prompted some of the discussion today:

5) Trying to get the launchers and indicators to align correctly for every icon is unusually hard. They are correctly centered for some icons, but not for others. I can't discern a pattern that would explain why some are correctly aligned and others are not. This will require more experimentation on my part before I can file a proper report...

fabounet, Tuesday 22 April 2008 à 12:17


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
Hi guys, happy to see that indicators brings some interest here !
1) it all depends on the icon : exemple : Firefox fills almost all the square (let's say a basic 48x48 pixels square), but nautilus fills maybe 40x40, letting at least 4 pixels on top and as much on bottom.
also some icons are centered, and other not (actually the best would be they fill the whole square OR they are aligned on the bottom, but it seems the icons' creators didn't think of a dock )
the offset was designed to help this point, it may not be a perfect solution though.
2) you can't define a square for an icon that would be different from its original one. I think it would be quite a pain to do that, and for the user to set that for all icons. not even mentionning some automatic icons like X icons or file icons.
3) ok I agree the idea to stick the indicator on the icon or not seems pertinent since both cases are possible. I have some work to do here then
4) I also wouldn't like constantly animating icons (but I love to see the little Cairo-Penguin wandering in my dock, is it a contradiction ? ), but the real problem is CPU usage (maybe it would just be 2 or 3% at rest, some tests are needed but I want to keep the dock the lightest possible)
Also how would you define the animation ? is there something like animated gif in svg ?
5) goto 1

coz, Wednesday 23 April 2008 à 02:34


Subscription date : 25 March 2008
Messages : 611
hey fabounet..
For animated icons... yes there is animated vector,,, most 2d animation applications, including flash, are done in vector.
I am not a big lover of animated icons, thats part of the reason I really hate KDE It was just a thought Although an animated indicator like a flame or Fyda's suggestions, do have some appeal ")
i agree that cairo dock should be as little cpu intensive as possible and I certainly wouldn't want to see it get to the point where it is just bogged down on some smaller systems that people use. So ignore anything i say that may interfere with cairo dock being as light as possible:)
I am trying. right now. to design a couple of icon themes specifically for cairo dock that will better take advantage of indicators as they are now.
The indicator is now withing the borders of the icon and the icon must be designed properly to take advantage of that. I dont really see a problem with that other than, as you mentioned, the icon designers dont take into consideration, the docks specific characteristics.
i do however like the idea of indicators on the dock plane itself or , even better , a user config option to have it within the icon borders as long as the icons themselves were designed for that. or on dock.
The discussion Fyda and I had was brought on by our love for cairo dock. i am glad you are easily approached when we dig into the specifics of functionality of cairo dock and then report them
Thanks

coz

fabounet, Wednesday 23 April 2008 à 13:40


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
I've added a parameter to link indicator to icons or not. In th efirst case they will move with icons, in the last case they are drawn on the dock, without zooming, but maybe they could also zoom to be more visible.
I was thinking to propose 2 indicators images, one would be drawn in the background (behind the icon) and the other on the foreground (above the icon) so that we could have some 3D-like effect (like a ribbon around the icon, which would be 2 demi-ellipse), what about it ?

ChAnGFu, Wednesday 23 April 2008 à 15:00


Subscription date : 17 January 2008
Messages : 1526
I agree with the 3D-like indicators, a neon effect will be more realistic with it. Can you keep up the current system and add a option to have 3D indicators?

fabounet, Wednesday 23 April 2008 à 17:10


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
there would just be 1 more image for the foreground (the present one is drawn on the background).

ChAnGFu, Wednesday 23 April 2008 à 17:23


Subscription date : 17 January 2008
Messages : 1526
Oki perfect

Guest, Tuesday 08 July 2008 à 18:22

hi I'm kinda lost my ciaro dock suddenly displays this black border around it..its quite annoying..could anyone help?please?:(

fabounet, Wednesday 09 July 2008 à 03:10


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
suddenly = what did you do just before ?

Ideas | Propositions

Subjects Author Language Messages Last message
[Locked] indicators
coz English 9 fabounet [Read]
09 July 2008 à 03:10


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