[Tango-artists] whither addressbook?

[Nathan Willis]

On 4/14/06, Rodney Dawes <dobey at novell.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 12:07 -0500, Nathan Willis wrote:
> > Well, I did notice that, but I think it still leaves the underlying
> > question unanswered: why is there no addressbook app icon?
>
> Because one has not been drawn, and we are trying to keep the metaphors
> between app icons and mime type icons, different. We want to have the
> metaphors for app icons be tool/brand related, and the mime types to be
> more about the content.


Ah, but it has been drawn; the MIME type icon.  And the MIME type icon is
the same as the actions icon for "new addressbook."  In what way is the
x-office-addressbook icon about content?

> I'll be happy to document my adventures on Symbian, of course.  At
> > this stage in the game, the missing pieces are the big obstacle.
>
> They shouldn't be. Tango is not simply about an icon theme, and putting
> it in as many places as possible. If you have good metaphor suggestions
> for dealing with the different applications, and the file types they
> deal with, it would be good to hear them, so we can check them out, and
> possibly use and recommend them, if they fit well.


I'm quite clear on the purposes & goals of the project, thanks. As I work on
the Symbian theme, I will bring suggstions and criticisms as they arise.
For now, however, the obstacle is finding suitable icons for the missing
items.  "They shouldn't be?"  What does that mean -- in a perfect world?  It
is the obstacle at this stage.

> (While we're on the subject: there's no clock icon either, which is
> > kind of important.  And why is there both an "office-calendar" _and_
> > an "x-office-calendar" -- and why on earth are they different?)
>
> The calendar bit is described above. A calendar application is not the
> same as the file which contains the calendar contents, with all of the
> events, meetings, recurrances, and such.


Yeah, that's well understood, but it doesn't address the question about the
two icons.  One is a flip-over calendar with a 31 on it, the other is a
flip-over calendar with a 12.  Jimmac answered the question in his email.

But it does raise another point while we are on the subject: by the same
token, an addressbook is an application just like a calendar app -- the
VCARD file containing contact(s) is analagous to the .ICS file for a
calendar app.

As for the clock icon, why is
> it so important? I *NEVER* see a clock icon on my desktop, unless I go
> to add something to the panel, as it is one of the first applets listed.


That argument is utterly moot.  When do you see the character-map icon on
your desktop, unless you go to add something to the panel?  When do you see
the calculator icon on your desktop?  When do you see
preferences-desktop-locale?  When do you see _anything_ in the /apps/
hierarchy?  You cannot seriously be suggesting that we run statistics on how
often people see any particular icon, and use that as the criterion for
selecting what to include, are you?  Because I'll put my money down 10-to-1
on devices/media-floppy getting the axe if that's how it's decided.

Also, we have not decided on a naming scheme for icons for applets and
> the like yet. Just calling it "clock" seems inappropriate to me. Clock
> icons are used to mean different things all over the UI.


Well, the naming convention used so far suggests accessories-clock.  Arrows
are used to mean different things all over the UI, too.

As I said above, Tango is not just an icon theme. You shouldn't expect it to
> just
> have as many icons as there are in other icon themes, just because it
> does provide a theme. The goals of the theme are to push the style and
> the naming specification, and to help push to have better looking icons
> on the desktop, by reducing the number of icons used in total.
>

Again, I am not unclear on what Tango is.  It boils down to this: either
addressbook, text-editor, and calculator are *all* acceptible and should be
part of the specification, or they are *all* unacceptible and should be
removed as calendar was.

Essetially the same issue holds for all generic apps in the /apps/ hierarchy
-- what is the need for internet-web-browser, internet-group-chat and
internet-mail?  Is there *any* application in the world that is devoid of
its own specific icon?  Why have generic app icons at all?

Nate
--
nathan.p.willis
nwillis at glyphography.com
aim/ym/gtalk:n8willis
blog.glyphography.com
flickr.com/photos/willis
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