Version: (using KDE Devel) Installed from: Compiled sources OS: Linux Current icons for : - stop - delete - start downloading - start all - stop all does not look like crystal at all, for stop/delete existing icons can be used. For the rest icons should be changed to be more crystal like.
CC'ing kde-artists, we need some help here guys :-)
Closed, our icons do not need to look like crystal. The icons match our application icon and website look, so we keep them.
But they don't match the rest of KDE and the rest of the desktop. In fact, KTorrent doesn't match KTorrent! Half of the icons in the Toolbar are Crystal, half are not. As a KDE application, KTorrent has to follow the KDE style. Please reconsider.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Right. The whole point of being a KDE application is that it fits in the KDE environment. The usability motivation behind this is rather clear. It can also be backed up by the HIG, and the more recent docs written by the HCI group. There wouldn't be much "KDE" if every app went its own way. What makes KDE strong is that each application doesn't see itself as the center of the universe, but part of a whole. Frans
Actually, earlier versions of KTorrent were better in this regard. Also "Stop", atl least, is a standard action, and it should use the standard "stop" icon. Finally, all the icons of the toolbar should have the optional text label. "New" "Open" and "Paste" do have it, the others do not.
I agree with you in some points. We considered using standard actions icons for 'Start' and 'Stop' but we also needed 'Start all' and 'Stop all' icons. So, making them look different would be rather stupid. That's why we decided to have custom ones for all 'downloads' actions. Also, I'm not really an artist so I cannot make nice icons. I bugged my friend to make us some and he did a good job in my opinion. If you want to provide a set of matching icons - please be my guest! We sure won't reject that offer. Another thing, KDE allows custom icons to be used thorough the system so what will happen if user doesn't choose Crystal ones? We would still have different sets...
>Finally, all the icons of the toolbar should have the optional text label. "New" "Open" and "Paste" do have it, the others do not. I forgot to add with my last comment - text labels are included you just have to enable them. Right click on downloads toolbar and set your preferred text position.
Created attachment 16968 [details] Usabilty "study" about the icons in Ktorrent. Ok, I too thought the icons needed improvement. They don't exactly have to be Crystal-like (although that would be the nicest solution since most KDE applications share the same style of icons), but they should better convey what they do. In any case, I figured I should do some random interviews on IRC to support my claims and see what people could make of the icons. Please see the attached spreadsheet. I interviewed 15 various people with different backgrounds on their use of Ktorrent and torrents in general. As you can see, most people could not figure out what the Ktorrent-styled icons did. The three people who had used Ktorrent before gave reasons such as "reading the tooltips" or "clicking on it to find out what it does" for their knowledge of what the icons did. My personal interpretation is this; I first thought that the stop all torrents was to be used for minimizing/maximizing or resizing the application. Furthermore, green isn't commonly associated with stop, red is. Because I'm an Opera user, I was reminded by the "Fast Forward" feature in Opera (http://www.opera.com/support/tutorials/flash/fastforward/), although I wasn't quite sure how that would fit in a torrent client. I thought that the Queue Manager button would open the file in konqueror, because it shares the same style as konqueror. I know that it might be hard to convey a queue manager in an icon. Perhaps a queue rope like the ones you would find at banks, (Ie. http://images.google.com/images?&q=rope%20queue) would be suitable for this? Could you please re-consider changing the icons in Ktorrent? If not, at least consider enabling the "text under icons" by default, this would definitely help new users figure out what each icon does.
For some reason the bugtracker seems to serve my attachment with the wrong filename (attachment.cgi), so you might want to rename it if it does.
I think KTorrent *deserves* a nice set of Oxygen-friendly icons for the KDE4 release. Perhaps we/you (the KTorrent devs) could ask the Oxygen artists for advice on the look and feel of the icons. There are some very experienced icon designers there. What do you think?
Or letting the user customize there toolbar icons? Just like konqueror.