[GRASS-dev] ady to help with GRASS graphics

[Michael Barton]

On Mar 12, 2008, at 8:14 AM, grass-dev-request at lists.osgeo.org wrote:

> Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:45:32 +0200
> From: Wolf Bergenheim <wolf+grass at bergenheim.net>
> Subject: Re: Re[GRASS-dev] ady to help with GRASS graphics
> To: Robert Szczepanek <grass at szczepanek.pl>
> Cc: grass-dev at lists.osgeo.org
> Message-ID: <47D7C25C.2030300 at bergenheim.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> On 03/12/2008 11:15 AM, Robert Szczepanek wrote:
>> Yes, your opinion could help me a lot.
>> My doubt is related to basic icon size.
>> Popular standards for toolbars are 16x16px [SMALL], 24x24 [MEDIUM]  
>> and 32x32
>> [LARGE].
>
>> Looking at total number of icons and icons for certain commands  
>> group the
>> best solution seems to be 24x24.
>
>> Is it acceptable from i/ coding (TclTk,
>> wxpython) ii/ general Grass layout point of view?
>
> I think 24x24 icons are good, as they seem to be used. Better yet,  
> make
> them in SVG so we can later render them into different sizes.
>

I'm very much looking forward to seeing new icons. I'd ask again,  
however, that you please coordinate with the interface development  
team on this (Martin Landa and myself most active at the moment, but  
also Jachym Cepicky and Daniel Cavelo). As you mention, there are  
some size issues that mean that new icons should not just be a drop  
in replacement for what we have now. I did the existing ones for  
TclTk quite awhile back and without much guidance on how to do it.  
With you working on and thinking about this in a more informed way,  
I'd like to take this opportunity to have a more professional-looking  
product than we do now.

I like the the 24 x 24 size and think that the silk alternate set are  
too small, at least for my eyes. However, wxPython has preferred  
sizes that make things work smoother. I am not in a position to check  
at the moment, but I think that it generally expects a default of 16  
x 16. You can specify other sizes, but sometimes these have caused  
some odd errors if I remember rightly. I'm pretty sure that the  
current 24 x 24 set is rescaled to 16 x 16 in the wxPython GUI. If  
that's the case, it seems like the result would look better if it  
were drawn to that size rather than relying on wxPython to rescale them.

So we should probably test some examples to see which sizes work and  
look best so that you can not waste your time on having to rescale  
down or up.


Michael