Add status icons: data-error, data-warning, data-information
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Authored by kossebau on Feb 10 2020, 1:55 AM.

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Summary

These are generic icons to use to mark the status of data or other content.
The current available icons are bound to other context, like dialog or
cloud.

Use case of such icons would be e.g. with KDevelop to put such lines on the
marker border to mark lines with errors, warnings or hints as found by
parsers & checkers by a symbol, as well as in the problem report tool view
or as symbols in inline notes.
Those places use small icons, and best signal the type of marker by both
shape & color.

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Repository
R266 Breeze Icons
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adddatastatusicons
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kossebau created this revision.Feb 10 2020, 1:55 AM
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kossebau requested review of this revision.Feb 10 2020, 1:55 AM

See how KDevelop looks like currently using the dialog-error & Co. icons, the icons do not really help here being uncolored and their shape driven by "dialog":


This is how it would look with the data-error & Co. icons:

Possibly slightly to colorish. Proposals how to improve welcome.

I think the emblem icons look great in your "After" screenshot.

Wouldn't it be easier to have KDevelop use these emblem icons from their current names rather than symlinking the icons you want to use to new files with different names? Semantically it seems wrong; status icons are monochrome and use the action icon style. See https://hig.kde.org/style/icons/action_status.html.

I think the emblem icons look great in your "After" screenshot.

Wouldn't it be easier to have KDevelop use these emblem icons from their current names rather than symlinking the icons you want to use to new files with different names? Semantically it seems wrong; status icons are monochrome and use the action icon style. See https://hig.kde.org/style/icons/action_status.html.

The reason for this patch is the same concern. Using the emblem icons here is also semantically wrong[1]. While it gives good results with Breeze and other themes like Oxygen or Adwaita don't have them and we can use the fallback of dialog-* we don't know if it's true for every third party theme.
[1] https://specifications.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html

Emblems Icons for tags and properties of files, that are displayed in the file manager. This context contains emblems for such things as “read-only” or “photos”.

kossebau added a comment.EditedFeb 10 2020, 12:40 PM

Like @davidre said. Abusing emblem icons would be a not-nice hack, those icons serve a different purpose and thus also follow different rules (e.g. being able to be painted on top of complex backgrounds, cmp. e.g. the black outline). We want to use icons whose names and type are semantically correct, not pick names of icons whose current appearance in the Breeze theme comes close to what looks okay.

Another candidate for the new icons would be e.g. in cells of tables or other dense forms where one wants to mark an error/warning/info state in-line/in-cell, see e.g. KMyMoney's current usage of some own custom icon:

Simply linking the emblem icons is in any case a first cheap shot. So far I am hoping for someone fluent with icon designing who could take a look at the at the rules for status icons ( https://hig.kde.org/style/icons/action_status.html ) and give the Breeze-style typical in-icon margins as well as the system’s color pick-up logic.

As fallback I would try to do this myself, but that takes ages for me :) And given error/warning/info are simple common shapes, I would hope the in-house artists do that for breakfast :)

To give an example what I would expect proper Breeze status icons to look like, get an idea of me doing crude hacking to turn the emblem variants into something matching the style guide for status icons:
adding in-icon margins & removing the explicit contrast outline:

Those don't look too bad. :) Wanna submit them?

Thanks for feedback, sounds good, so we are 2 already. Now curious about more opinions.
Though when I said "crude hacking" I really meant it ;) So sadly nothing to seriously upload. This need some qualified icon drawing person do get the proper roundings, diagonals and proportions done. Also to decide whether to align the "!" and the "i" vertically or not, given the narrow top of the warning triangle shape asks to add more internal top margin to not blend into the triangle borders. I would have my opinion on this, but prefer more experienced to do this.

kossebau updated this revision to Diff 75428.Feb 11 2020, 3:45 AM

Add own data-* icons, done to best what sleeplessness and community.kde.org guides
allowed me to twist together.

Color-adaption works.
Hardcoded #ffffff for the !,i,X symbols should possible see some fix, but
all existing usage of the same error/warning/info emblem also has the same
hardcoding.

kossebau updated this revision to Diff 75429.Feb 11 2020, 3:59 AM

missing bottom aligning of warning symbol for 22

Icons look like this, 16x16 & 22x22 :

kossebau edited the summary of this revision. (Show Details)Feb 11 2020, 2:15 PM

@ndavis Hi, any chance this can sneak in your busy schedule the next days? :) Anyone else from the VDG who might have time to sponsor these icons to have them available with Breeze?

ndavis accepted this revision.Feb 14 2020, 7:21 AM

Personally, I think emblems are fine, but I'm not going to hold up the KDevelop patch just because of that. They already existed in Papirus, the most popular 3rd party theme.

The naming spec isn't that useful because there's nobody to enforce it and theme designers have to adapt to application designers, who often don't follow the naming spec.

This revision is now accepted and ready to land.Feb 14 2020, 7:21 AM
This revision was automatically updated to reflect the committed changes.