"minimal list of must have icons"

[Krzysztof Kosiński]

Hello

I am a theme designer responsible for Gartoon Redux [1]. I have read
the extended device names list, and I have some comments.

1. I think that the number of icons you propose for different phones,
multimedia players etc. is excessive. With regards to different
flavors of iPod, there even may be no way to determine the iPod's
color in software. There are also naming problems, for example Canon
Digital Rebel XT is sold as Canon EOS 350D in Europe and Canon EOS
Kiss Digital N in Japan. I think the spec should concentrate on useful
generalizations rather than spelling out every make and model of every
device on the planet. Nobody is going to draw those icons if most
users never see them. Exceptions are multimedia-player-apple-ipod,
phone-apple-iphone and gaming console icons - those are useful because
of their popularity. Moreover, it seems like encouraging trademark
infringement, because the only way to distinguish some of the devices
or provide sensible fallback icons (e.g. computer-gaming-nintendo) is
to include the vendor's trademark in the icon.

2. There are many more useful generic icons:
input-gaming-joystick
input-gaming-steering-wheel
input-gaming-pad
input-gaming-yoke (i.e. aircraft controller)
printer-inkjet
printer-laser
printer-mfd (printer function of a multi-function device)
printer-plotter
printer-plotter-cutting (for vinyl cutters)
video-display-vga
video-display-dvi
(VGA / DVI is what can be distinguished in software, but it could as
well be video-display-crt, video-display-flatpanel, video-projector,
etc.)
input-tablet-display (for tablets with a screen)
input-tablet-display-digitizer (for tablet PC digitizers)
camera-photo-compact
camera-photo-dslr

3. No icons for internal components like CPU, sound card, etc. which
tend to appear in device browsers, could be internal-cpu,
internal-fan, internal- as well as audio and video devices:
audio-card, video-card, network-card

4. Media naming scheme is inconsistent, for instance
media-flash-compactflash but media-flash-sd (instead of
media-flash-securedigital, or media-flash-cf). I think the shorter
names are good. If we're going to have different icons for MS and MS
Pro that have the same physical dimensions, then there should also be
CF Type I and Type II, CF Microdrives, SDHC... I think that may be too
many, so it would be better to limit the list to the generic types
(SD/MMC, CF, MS, SmartMedia, xD)

5. The phone naming scheme proposed in the comment
(phone-<make>-<carrier>-<model>) is wrong, the better option would be
phone-<make>-<model>-<carrier>, since the carrier names are specific
to a country while phone models are generally marketed worldwide.

I have some other unrelated comments to the spec, but I'll send them
in another mail to keep this thread focused.

Regards, Krzysztof Kosiński

[1] http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=74841

2009/1/3 Rodney Dawes <dobey.pwns at gmail.com>:
> The Icon Naming Specification itself only provides the minimal list of
> names. I've changed the text you referenced, to clarify this, in CVS.
> There will be addendums to provide lists of names for extra icons, such
> as devices[1] and MIME types.
>
> The names in the spec itself are intended to be the base set, and thus
> what everything falls back to, and so should be the priority when
> creating a new theme.
>
> -- Rodney
>
> [1] http://people.freedesktop.org/~dobey/device-names.txt
>
>
> On Sat, 2009-01-03 at 17:30 +0300, Vasiliy Faronov wrote:
>> Hello.
>>
>> The Icon Theme Specification 0.8.90, according to the Overview section,
>> aims to "provid[e] a minimal list of must have icons, and a larger list
>> with many more examples to help with the creation of extended icons
>> for third party applications, devices, and new MIME types."[1]
>>
>> However, as far as I can tell, the specification only contains one list
>> of icons along with their names[2]. No separation by priority.
>>
>> Is this the "must have" list, or the "larger one"?
>>
>> In general, are there any recommendations on the priority of icons
>> (i.e. which ones are more essential)?
>
>
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