unity-design team mailing list archive

[Mark Shuttleworth <mark@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 19/03/10 02:36, Jan Claeys wrote:
>> I'm not sure a typical flasher is a good solution.  I think a subtle
>> animation that triggered every 15 seconds or so might be a better
>> match for the minimalist approach they are taking. 
>>     
> 15 seconds is a long time in some cases (remember the example of an
> incoming phone call that was mentioned before).
>   

Flashing would be an *extreme* case. In fact, anything that urgent
should be an always-on-top window.

Otto Greenslade has been due to write up a formal description of the
styling of the panel that we're looking for. I'm now going to pre-empt
him with some bullet points here, which he and MPT will reduce to a
specification.

 - The general style of the panel icons should be monochrome, and flat
(no rounding or 3D effects)
 - Monochrome can include shades, like bright, medium and dim (see the
battery icon)
 - Outline forms have meaning (to be defined, but things like
"unconfigured" or "not running" or "no hardware")
 - Colour should *only* be used for off-nominal states, things which can
be reset to monochrome by taking care of them
 - Green can be used for positive states like "You have a message"
 - Orange and Red should be used for alert conditions like "Restart
required"

It would be acceptable to put an icon on the panel which is NOT
compliant with this guide if it represents:

 - a person (avatar)
 - a product which is not part of the default install (say you install
Pidgin rather than the default Empathy, I might expect to see the Pidgin
icon rather than the more symbolic "Chat" icon used for Empathy in the
Messaging menu).

As I say, MPT and Otto will produce a style guide for the Ubuntu panel
icons. That style should be distinctive to Ubuntu and part of our trade
dress. The specification will also include guidelines as to when to use
outlines, filled icons, greyed out or shaded colour, and green / orange
/ red.

Mark

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