kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[jp charras <jp.charras@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Le 24/10/2013 11:42, Fabrizio Tappero a écrit :
> Hello,
> 
> About 2 years have passed since KiCad got its new look with the 26px
> icons. At that time approx 400 icons had to be redrawn/resized/reused
> etc. It was a lot of fun!
> 
> I'd like to propose a new round of changes to give to KiCad a new
> polished look so that we can have the best looking EDA tool in the
> world!!
> 
> Before any further do I'd like to ask what people think about some issues:
> 
> 1) 400 icons are hard to manage and maintain. I would warmly propose
> to drop all icons in all drop-down menus. The use of icons there is a
> little bit old style and not really used any longer in modern GUI
> design.
> 
> 2) I every now and then hear about people wanting smaller icons, maybe
> large icons, movable icon toolbars, toolbars that re-size with the
> screen size. What do we feel about that?
> 
> 3) monitor pixel density (pixes per cm) in slowly increasing, this
> means that what was big icon two years ago now is a small icon. Do we
> want more than one size of icons.
> 
> 4) Is there any input from OS X users? OS X is known to be a prettier
> place, would be great to aim at getting there.
> 
> 5) looking at the looks of other PBC CAD tools what can we change to
> make KiCad better looking? For instance do we think gEDA/whatever has
> a better appearance? What can we copy? Where can we get inspiration
> from:
> http://chitlesh.fedorapeople.org/FEL/images/pcb.png
> http://www.expresspcb.com/GSoftware/SShotExpressPCB_3.gif
> http://www.printedcircuitsboards.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/osmond-pcb-design-software.gif
> http://www.diptrace.com/img/dpict1_l.gif
> http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/Technical/PCBs_and_Eagle_CAD/Eagle_CAD_fill_isolate.png
> http://masalaboratory.c.blog.so-net.ne.jp/_images/blog/_c23/masalaboratory/olimex_pcbcad1.png?c=a1
> 
> In my opinion the appearance and user friendliness of the KiCad GUI is
> good but not great. Hence this e-mail
> 
> 6) Big topic but.. what do we think about tabs:
> http://morphesys.com/images/Portfolio/CAD/pcb4.jpg
> 
> 7) some icons are quite mysterious and the association between what
> they do and how they look is probably known only to the guy who made
> it. Which icons are those?
> 
> 8) is there an amazing PCB CAD (or graphic software) out there that
> has amazing icons? Any futuristic look anybody has in mind?
> 
> 
> Any suggestion is welcome.
> Cheers
> Fabrizio

Fabrizio,

Certainly, some icons should be enhanced.
*But keep in mind changing icons means also changing the full Kicad
documentation*.
This means a *lot* of work.

Therefore We should be careful when changing icons.

To tell the true, icons shown from your links are poor.
Not sure they give us inspiration.

Resizing icons is a matter of compil options.
No need to change them for this reason.
They are (thanks you) created in svg form, not in pixmap, and are
therefore easily scalable.

However, about icons, there are *a lot of enhancements* which to be made
in Kicad:
I am mainly thinking about icons which explain options in many dialogs:
For instance, in zone options, an icon which shows what is the thermal
relief options, the anti-pad value, the spoke value, and so on.
Also, what is a micro via, a blink/buried via ...
There are *many dialogs* which will be better with some icons which
explain what happen when an option isselected.

Trust me, there is a lot of work about this, and Kicad will be great
only if this kind of icons exists in dialogs, not if existing icons are
changed.

By the way:
>I would warmly propose
> ...
>to drop all icons in all drop-down menus. The use of icons there is a
> little bit old style and not really used any longer in modern GUI
> design.

Menus without icons are I saw many years at the beginning of Windows.
Therefore, I am some trouble with "no icons in modern GUI design" idea.

Be *very* careful with "modern GUI design".
Do not try to mimic what other guys are doing, unless you are convinced
they have really good ideas.
(Take only good ideas, leave bad ones)

Thanks for your involvement in Kicad.

-- 
Jean-Pierre CHARRAS