Emoticon theme specification Version 0.1

[Jakub Steiner]

On Mon, 2005-01-10 at 16:52 +0100, Olivier Goffart wrote:
> Le Lundi 10 Janvier 2005 02:52, Frans Englich a écrit :
> > As Owen thinks, I also see advantages in using the existing icon theme
> > specification, if the complications can be solved. That spec have already
> > outlined low level details for icon filenames/types, and hence avoids spec
> > duplication, among other things.
> 
> Emoticons and icon themes are both images, and that make sens to have them in 
> the same global theme.

Hi everyone,

FWIW Gnome icon theme has been shipping  a set of emoticons for quite a
while since I thought it's the obvious place to have them. If there's an
agreement of having them separate of icon theme, you totally shouldn't
forget about SVG.

> Anyway, i still think emoticon should be provided alone. 
> The idea is that it's important to share the same emoticons theme between 
> different person so they can see both two the same emoticons.
> 
> So for instance in Kopete, we already thought about setting different emoticon 
> themes per protocol, or even per contacts.)

I don't agree that the two people chatting have to see the same emoticon
graphic. The same metaphor needs to be preserved in all themes, yes. But
in an IM conversation, the parties aren't required to have the same
font, so I don't see a reason to force one into sharing the same
aesthetic sense with emoticons either. I think it's more important to
keep the particular desktop visually consistent. 

Seeing multiple emoticon themes in gaim depending on the protocol made
me think of it as immature similarly as looking at XP having 30% of its
icons from the 95 era. 


> Also in MSN Messenger, the user is allowed to use different emoticons, and 
> theses emoticons are even transmitted to the other side.
> We planed to export the emoticon theme as well.

As I described above, I think that's a bad plan.

cheers

-- 
Jakub Steiner <jimmac at ximian.com>