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Re: 256x256 px icons


On 7/27/2011 2:04 PM, Andy Koppe wrote:
- The 16x16 has white dots in the corners.

That was a feature. But you no like it, I make go 'way.


- There are black edges around the icons. Those need to be transparent.

Why?


I purposely redrew the edges in the smaller icons for contrast and clarity. (Among other things.) Because the Konsole icon edges are black, I made the semitransparent pixels you get from simple downsampling pure black. If all you want is the blurry mess you get from a direct downsample, there's no point in having the smaller icons at all.

Maybe a dark gray would make you happier? Something that approximates the appearance of a thin black line blending into the background the icon is being matted on, without trying to make use of alpha blending?

My old skool heritage is showing. I've been trained not to use alpha blending a 32 px and below. When I was a boy, all we had was 8 bpp with one color reserved for yes/no transparency, AND WE LIKED IT.

Is this outmoded? Will XP do the right thing with RGBA for 16 px icons? Is that a good idea regardless, or is old skool the only skool?

- Contrast and saturation are rather low. I think it would be better
to overlay the Cygwin symbol on top of the terminal rather than
blending them.

Here it is:


http://etr-usa.com/cygwin/mintty-icon/no-text.ico

It also has the gray edges on the smaller icons instead of black, and transparent corners in the 16x16.

I had to remove the text, which makes the result not as clearly a terminal. At 256 and arguably at 48 px, you can figure out that it might be a terminal, especially if you've seen the icon in its previous incarnation. At 32 px and below, I challenge anyone to honestly tell me that there is any sense of "terminal" left in this version.

One could make an argument for going back to the plain old Konsole icon. Maybe one icon cannot serve two masters.

I don't want to get all bikesheddy. I'm just telling you my thought process, so we can get to a decision.


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