[Users] theme icons

[blind Pete]

Second attempt.  Would my earlier post have been rejected 
because it had a 90k attachment?  There is no screen shot 
this time.  


Ian Nartowicz wrote:

> blind Pete <peter_s_d <at> fastmail.com.au> writes:
> 
>> 
>> Hi List,
>> 
>> I have cobbled together a few huge icons for a theme, but I have a few
>> questions silly questions...
>> 
>> First up, I am using CM 3.8.0, so tell me to upgrade if necessary.
>> 
>> I want all of my icons to be distinct, but similar.  For example,
>> all of the toolbar icons have a box around them.  The toolbar supports;
>> watch thread, ignore thread, rot13, and spam, but there does not
>> appear to be any provision for separate large icons for these.
>> Other icons are reused, limiting the theme designer's choices.
>> 
>> Is this deliberate?  Or a bug?  Or several bugs?
>> 
>> More questions to follow...
>> 
> 
> There is very little difference from a theming point of view between your
> version and the latest 3.9.2.  I think two new icons, neither of them
> critical so you can worry about them later.

OK, I'm off to a good start.  

> However I'm not entirely sure what your question is.  Is there a specific
> icon that you feel is used in two places that would better be shown as two
> different icons?  The toolbar (actually three different toolbars) supports
> a whole host of actions with icons, as well as allowing you to choose
> different icons if you want.  What exactly is the difficulty?  As a
> specific example, the spam toolbar button icon is separate, and usually
> larger, than the spam indicator icon in the message list.

My fault.  There is provision for "spam.png" and "spam_btn.png".  
It is a few months since I tinkered with the artwork and have only 
just come back to it - and got it wrong.  

The "watchthread.png" icon gets used twice, but icons called 
"watchthread_btn.png" or "watch_btn.png" do not make it to the toolbars.  

Attached is a screenshot showing the same blue eye icon in two places, 
I want all of my toolbar icons to be boxed as a coherent set.  

The "rot13" icon is an odd one, see the screen shot.  How do you 
override the default icon?  It is not like it is a security feature 
that must be hard coded.  NOTE:- This message was rot13-ed TWICE, 
for double security!  ;-)  

There does not seem to be any "ham.png" to match the "ham_btn.png", 
like "spam.png" matches "spam_btn.png".  Is that deliberate?  It was 
the source of my confusion earlier.  

> You are free to set your icons to the size that you want them to appear on
> the toolbar.  Typically this would be all the same size, but you can
> certain certain button icons larger. The recommended size is 24x24px but
> this isn't
> enforced.  Check out this link for some more information helpful to
> themers, although not 100% accurate or up to date (apologies for the poor
> formatting of that page):
> http://www.claws-mail.org/faq/index.php/Icon_Themes_Information

That page seems to have gone pear shaped.  There are lots of, 
"Error creating thumbnail" messages.  I've seen it in the past and 
it was helpful, thanks. 

In the face of high resolution medium sized screens a pixel pitch 
of 0.3 mm is cheap and good displays can be much finer.  The "large" 
24x24 icons might be only a few mm across, making them a challenge 
for people with limited vision.  As for the *small* icons...  

49x49 seemed like a good starting place for me on my screen.  After 
playing with the configuration and making the fonts much larger, 
everything seems to fit together.  

> One of the best guides to theming Claws is just to look at a recent theme
> with a full set of icons.  Even some of those are not quite accurate or
> complete, but I think Fresh Black (my theme!) is as complete as possible,
> including some workarounds for bugs.
> 
> --ian

I have looked at other themes.  It will be obvious that I have "drawn 
heavily" on pre-existing artwork, but everything seems to be GPL.  

-- 
blind Pete
Sig goes here...