kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Nick Østergaard <oe.nick@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yep, also note that the GTK people also tried to follow these OS X
guidelines, so I don't actually have icons on my desktop on linux, GTK
forces it off in some configurations.  But I think they have also
realised that they are actually useful. So this is not only on OS X.

I am too lazy to find some references on this for GTK, but if you are
interested you can ask google.

2015-07-30 13:28 GMT+02:00 Johannes Maibaum <jmaibaum@xxxxxxxxx>:
> Hello Collin,
>
> As far as I remember, menu icons are disabled on OSX in order to conform
> with Apple's UI guidelines that favor text-only menus over additional icons.
>
> So while there might be no technical issue with enabling icons for OSX too
> (I know that it worked years ago, when they were enabled by default), I
> think that the main reason for disabling them is the "native OSX user" who
> is used to text-only menus from all other applications and might find icons
> distractive.
>
> From my point of view, cross-platform should not mean "has to look the same
> on all platforms", but rather "has to work on all supported platforms, but
> not violate its standard UI policies".
>
> I understand that menu icons are a rather minor "violation" and I would not
> mind if they were re-enabled. But if there is a definite decision to make,
> my vote would go to not enabling them again. Personally, I find icons in
> menus distractive, if recognizable at all at such small sizes, so I
> eventually always fall back to reading the text (this also holds true for
> context menus, where icons are still enabled). Menu icons, for me, are just
> visual clutter that take away screen space (I am often working on a 13 inch
> MBP).
>
> Just my .02.
>
>
> Best,
> Johannes
>
>
> Von Samsung Mobile gesendet
>
>
> -------- Ursprüngliche Nachricht --------
> Von: Collin Anderson
> Datum:30.07.2015 12:53 (GMT+01:00)
> An: KiCad Developers
> Betreff: [Kicad-developers] Can we enable menu icons on OS X?
>
> Can anyone explain why menu icons are enabled on all platforms except OS X?
> I've looked through the menuhelper.h code and the CMake build files, and all
> I can find is reference to it being disabled on OS X by default, but the
> reason why is not given anywhere I can find.
>
> I've been using KiCad for months on OS X and I force the menu icons on every
> time, and there are no issues.  They are very helpful from a usage
> standpoint and beyond that, it is the interface I'm used to when I use KiCad
> in Debian, and my coworkers in in Windows.  It's both annoying and
> distressing to suddenly lose all those visual cues but only on the OS X
> platform.  It would be understandable if there was some sort of issue, or
> they didn't work right on OS X, but that's not the case.
>
> Regardless, as it stands now, KiCad's interface is not platform agnostic,
> which is something that ought to be a priority for any software claiming to
> be cross-platform.
>
> Can we simply comment out, or better, remove, the line in the root
> CMakeLists file that goes out of its way to disable menus, but only if
> __APPLE__?  I'll even do it myself and make a merge quest, if its simply a
> matter of no one having the time.
>
> I, like many users I suspect, find I rely on icons and visual cues much more
> than actual text of menu and contextual menu items.  I have no choice but to
> build KiCad (which takes a long time on my machine) if I want the latest dev
> build in a usable (and truly cross platform) state.  I DO do his regularly,
> but sometimes I do need it quick and it would be nice if I could take
> advantage of Adam Wolf's generously provided nightly builds, but since the
> default build settings disable menu icons, it largely becomes time spent
> discovering how much I actually rely on the menu icons, rather than spent on
> electronic design.
>
> If I've missed something, and there IS a good reason for breaking KiCad's
> cross platform consistency, I'd love to know - I'll see if I can fix the
> issue and file a merge proposal.  And if I can't I'll at least add that
> reason in the comments around the relevant code, since it requires
> justification (in my humble opinion, anyway, for what little that is worth
> ;)   )
>
>
> --
> "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." - Isaac Asimov
>
>
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