I am pretty good at this kind of stuff, I would like to think I can code, but I know better. I would like to contribute if I can. I love BeOS and would like to contribute to this is at all possible.
Haiku ought to have some sort of support for skinning so 3rd party apps. wont have to hack the system to make skinning possible. However, the default behaviour should be "skinning off". Animations when emptying trash can and minimizing windows and that kind of things should be turned off as well, as default behaviour.
When it comes to icons I'm heavily in support of vectorbased icons. It's so much better than bitmaps, especially when it comes to resizing icons. And it saves space on harddrive as well as being easier to create. You don't have to create iconset of 16*16, 24*24, 32*32, 48*48, 64*64, 96*96, 128*128 and so. You just create one and this can be scaled from 16*16 to 128*128 or 256*256 or whatever. :D
I'm running 1600*1200 on my 17"monitor :twisted: and isometric icons at 32*32 are just too small, because some of the width and height is lost due to the simulation of the missing 3rd dimension. I'm using some BEOS icons in my win2k and at 32*32 they kind of disappear. Look at a 32*32 2D-icon and compare it with a 32*32 isometric icon and you'll understand what I mean ;)
In Fedora Core 2 with Gnome as desktop, the icons are vectorbased. At least some of them but not all, though. Some are PNG, some are GIF, other TIFF and so on. But some are vectorbased and it's great. Looks good in 16*16 and better in 48*48 :P
And vectorbased icons are so much easier for everybody. And it's possible to have the blocky look for those of you who want that... it's not difficult to create a blocky-looking vector-icon... it's pretty easy actually ;)
Well, i'm not agree about that. A PNG of 128x128 would in fact take more space on your hard drive (who cares ?) but would be only one file for all size !
Look a that screenshot of a WinXp AquaDock:
It uses PNG files, and as a 1 year and a half user, i can swear you that it's very quick and clean ! And when i need a new icon, i just create a PNG (that support transparency better than a GIF and is free to use) and it's ok.
(by default, this app use the Windows icon so as you can see, for the calc, it sucks !)
So no need to make a SVG file (and i'm definitly not agree with you that a SVG icon is simplier to create than a simple PNG, simply cause i have to create SVG icon) which is hard to calculate for old hardware ...
Also, an icon in PNG IS 18kO ... eh eh ... see what i mean ? ;)
(Test AquaDock and you will see what i mean. you have THE SAME RESULT than a SVG icon ... and who use icons bigger than 64x64 ? So PNG of 64x64 would be i think 12ko or 10Ko i think SVG is not that far)
Well, i'm not agree about that. A PNG of 128x128 would in fact take more space on your hard drive (who cares ?) but would be only one file for all size !
Look a that screenshot of a WinXp AquaDock: (Image removed - just so you know it :P ... Mr.Jones)
It uses PNG files, and as a 1 year and a half user, i can swear you that it's very quick and clean ! And when i need a new icon, i just create a PNG (that support transparency better than a GIF and is free to use) and it's ok.
(by default, this app use the Windows icon so as you can see, for the calc, it sucks !)
So no need to make a SVG file (and i'm definitly not agree with you that a SVG icon is simplier to create than a simple PNG, simply cause i have to create SVG icon) which is hard to calculate for old hardware ...
Also, an icon in PNG IS 18kO ... eh eh ... see what i mean ? ;)
(Test AquaDock and you will see what i mean. you have THE SAME RESULT than a SVG icon ... and who use icons bigger than 64x64 ? So PNG of 64x64 would be i think 12ko or 10Ko i think SVG is not that far)
Well well... IF (and only IF) people / developers / softwarecompanies REMEMBER to create PNG's at 128*128 will I surrender :lol: ... It's true that PNG's can look extremely good, and can be resized with very good results. However. It cannot be smaller than 128*128 and it does require some sort of bilinear resizing routines to look real good. Anything smaller than 128*128 will look bad when resized to a larger size. Try and run 1600*1200 on a 17" monitor ... 32*32 just disappears. 32*32 at 800*600 equals 64*64 in 1600*1200 , and many (at least in DK) have resolutions larger than that. In DK typical size is rather 1280*1024 than 800*600, or 1024*768 (this is low resolution by modern standards :P ). So 128*128 PNG's and we have a deal... but nothing less ;)
Comments
Help?
but if you want smoother icons, We can make smooth icons with an blocky one at 32x32 size ?
Help?
Haiku ought to have some sort of support for skinning so 3rd party apps. wont have to hack the system to make skinning possible. However, the default behaviour should be "skinning off". Animations when emptying trash can and minimizing windows and that kind of things should be turned off as well, as default behaviour.
When it comes to icons I'm heavily in support of vectorbased icons. It's so much better than bitmaps, especially when it comes to resizing icons. And it saves space on harddrive as well as being easier to create. You don't have to create iconset of 16*16, 24*24, 32*32, 48*48, 64*64, 96*96, 128*128 and so. You just create one and this can be scaled from 16*16 to 128*128 or 256*256 or whatever. :D
I'm running 1600*1200 on my 17"monitor :twisted: and isometric icons at 32*32 are just too small, because some of the width and height is lost due to the simulation of the missing 3rd dimension. I'm using some BEOS icons in my win2k and at 32*32 they kind of disappear. Look at a 32*32 2D-icon and compare it with a 32*32 isometric icon and you'll understand what I mean ;)
In Fedora Core 2 with Gnome as desktop, the icons are vectorbased. At least some of them but not all, though. Some are PNG, some are GIF, other TIFF and so on. But some are vectorbased and it's great. Looks good in 16*16 and better in 48*48 :P
And vectorbased icons are so much easier for everybody. And it's possible to have the blocky look for those of you who want that... it's not difficult to create a blocky-looking vector-icon... it's pretty easy actually ;)
Help?
Well, i'm not agree about that. A PNG of 128x128 would in fact take more space on your hard drive (who cares ?) but would be only one file for all size !
Look a that screenshot of a WinXp AquaDock:
It uses PNG files, and as a 1 year and a half user, i can swear you that it's very quick and clean ! And when i need a new icon, i just create a PNG (that support transparency better than a GIF and is free to use) and it's ok.
(by default, this app use the Windows icon so as you can see, for the calc, it sucks !)
So no need to make a SVG file (and i'm definitly not agree with you that a SVG icon is simplier to create than a simple PNG, simply cause i have to create SVG icon) which is hard to calculate for old hardware ...
Also, an icon in PNG IS 18kO ... eh eh ... see what i mean ? ;)
(Test AquaDock and you will see what i mean. you have THE SAME RESULT than a SVG icon ... and who use icons bigger than 64x64 ? So PNG of 64x64 would be i think 12ko or 10Ko i think SVG is not that far)
Help?
Well well... IF (and only IF) people / developers / softwarecompanies REMEMBER to create PNG's at 128*128 will I surrender :lol: ... It's true that PNG's can look extremely good, and can be resized with very good results. However. It cannot be smaller than 128*128 and it does require some sort of bilinear resizing routines to look real good. Anything smaller than 128*128 will look bad when resized to a larger size. Try and run 1600*1200 on a 17" monitor ... 32*32 just disappears. 32*32 at 800*600 equals 64*64 in 1600*1200 , and many (at least in DK) have resolutions larger than that. In DK typical size is rather 1280*1024 than 800*600, or 1024*768 (this is low resolution by modern standards :P ). So 128*128 PNG's and we have a deal... but nothing less ;)