Higher‐resolution OpenDocument icons for Mac OS X

Nicholas Shanks nickshanks at nickshanks.com
Mon Aug 27 07:58:40 PDT 2012


Since I am unable to compile LO, I figured I would work on the artwork a bit.
I noticed that the Windows .ico files included a 256px icon, and that
there were 256px icons in PNG form in the tree, yet the Mac icons were
only provided up to 128px in size.
So I have created revised versions of the
sysui/desktop/icons/oasis-*.icns files, derived directly from the PNG
files.

The Mac icon format also supports 512x512 and 1024x1024 sized icons,
so I have generated PNGs for these sizes and included them in the icns
files. (512px is used for the iTunes‐like carousel view called Cover
Flow, and 1024 is used for the same on high pixel density displays.)
These additional sizes add 2MB to the Mac distribution over the icns
files with just 256 added (not attached), which itself adds very
little due to better compression than the files currently in the tree.
The LO Mac distribution is already 640 MB so I figured another two to
make it look spiffy wouldn't hurt. If anyone objects though I can
re‐send with just 256 or just 512 included.
If you extract the attached tape archive into the sysui/desktop/
directory everything should be placed in the correct location.

I have NOT created equivalents for the OOo 1.0 and Microsoft file
formats because I think LO is wrong to use identical icons for them. I
will prepare new icons for all platforms which have the LibreOffice
document branding (detached upper right corner and tinted thick
border) but with elements that allow users to identify the file format
too, so that a user can see directly from the icon that "oh, this is a
Microsoft Word document, but double‐clicking it will open the file in
LibreOffice".

I also intend to create a new extension icon, the predominant shape of
which will be like the current one, but rotated 90° clockwise and with
the upper right corner detached, and a thick grey border and plain
white interior (no green plus). I will try to make it suck less in
appearance too, using main.svg as a starting point.

I also have some ideas for the main application icon (which currently
looks like a blank document, not an application). I think taking the
brown, yellow, green, blue and purple triangles used to identify the
main document types and arranging them radially in a circle 60° apart
from one another would look good. This motif would then be placed in a
square, rather than a rectangle, and adhere to platform conventions
for the appearance of applications, e.g. 0° for Windows, 30° for Mac &
Gnome, 45° for BeOS etc. Sound good?

-- 
Nicholas.
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