unity-design team mailing list archive

[Jason Smith <jason.smith@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 2010-12-05 at 21:47 -0300, Martín A. Casco wrote:
> I understand your point. But just an example, since I use Ubuntu (from
> Hardy), I always used AWN and 32 x 32 pixels for icon's launchers and
> never have fuzzy problems... Even with Cairo and Docky.

I wrote docky, trust me, it happens :)

> 
> But, if we use 52 x 52 small screens will loose to much space on
> launcher, and auto-hide can't be the solutions, for many users like
> me, auto-hide is not used..

Compared to the old launcher you lose an extra 2-4 pixels horizontally.
I understand then point about horizontal space. I believe a better
hiding mode may be useful for you. I hope to have intellihide ready
soon.

> 
> Even more, with 52 x 52 icon's size, we can't add more apps to the
> launcher, I know the option  arrange icons when we have a lot of apps
> on launcher or to many apps open, but this option is very unusable,
> it's look nice, but it's unusably..

52x52 vs 48x48 makes no difference in terms of number of vertical
applications on the launcher in a standard netbook screen. The last once
folds a tiny bit sooner is all.

I should note the code is completely flexible in icon sizing so we can
do resolution independent UI in the future.

> 
> Bets,
> 
> El dom, 05-12-2010 a las 18:53 -0500, Jason Smith escribió:
> > There are unfortunate limitations on icon sizing in Linux. We are
> > stuck
> > with 24px, 32px, 48px, and 64px icons. We can interpolate in
> > between,
> > however this will make it fuzzy. Further 32x32 is not a good option
> > since a lot of applications only ship a 24, 48, 64 set of icons.
> > Further, svg's while scalable, do not scale all that well either.
> > What
> > are designed to be 1px lines end up being fractions of pixels,
> > making
> > them fuzzy as well.
> > 
> > For the compiz version of Unity it was then decided to use 48x48
> > icons,
> > with a 2 pixel border in the tile. This represents a growth in tile
> > size
> > from mavericks 48x48 to Natty's 52x52. The icons do *look* a lot
> > bigger
> > though because the icon fills a lot more of the tile now. In reality
> > however, the icons are only 8% bigger. Some of this loss can be made
> > up
> > for by a smaller padding on each side of the launcher.
> > 
> > If you look at the launcher in Maverick you will see the icons are
> > fuzzy. Be warned though, once you notice this, you can never
> > un-notice!
> > 
> > To be truly scalable, Icon authors need to make svg's, and svg needs
> > a
> > way to denote a line has a fix pixel size. Until this is both
> > possible
> > and completed, we are stuck in the world of fixed icon sizes... or
> > shipping lots of icons. 

-- 
Jason Smith | Desktop Experience Team
GNOME Developer
Canonical USA Inc.
T. +1.248.756.6266 | jason.smith@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ubuntu - Linux for human beings | www.ubuntu.com