Version: Digikam 0.10 SVN 20090130 RC2 (using KDE 4.1.2) OS: Linux Installed from: Ubuntu Packages The text that reads "digiKam" in the upper right corner of digikam window looks quite poorly (jagged, low quality) in my 1920x1200 LCD monitor. Same problem with the text that reads "ShowFoto" in the stand-alone photo editor. It looks like the text doesn't use a good scalable font, or it is perhaps a bitmap. I wish the text would use a good scalable font (following my system preference for full hinting) or alternatively that the text would be SVG - KDE4 shouldn't have a problem to make this look great.
Look here: http://websvn.kde.org:80/trunk/extragear/graphics/digikam/data/pics/banner-digikam.png?revision=910374&view=markup Does this graphics file show the deficits that you report?
Marcel: yes the text in the logo doesn't look good (jagged), particularly when you compare it with all other text in the UI. All other text in digikam's interface looks great. Maybe making the text more grayish would help make the problem less noticeable. Ultimately, inkscape/svg may be of help here.
This PNG file is generated from inkscape/svg ! http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/extragear/graphics/digikam/data/pics/logo-digikam.svgz?view=log Personally, I don't see any problem here with this logo... Gilles Caulier
Hi Gilles, the logo looks great in both svg and bitmap, the not-so-great-as-it-could-be part is the text ("digiKam" - "showFoto") that is right beside it (on the left). Not that it looks bad - I just wish it looked better. In contrast. The "digiKam" text in the splash looks great. It may be that the font size that is used for the main window text does not render well into a bitmap. Changing the size a bit may help, changing the foreground color may help, or perhaps using a regular text label and letting KDE handle the scaling and antialising may also help.
I think it is the bottom of the "g", the right side of the "a" and a bit on the left side of the "d". Now this is how inkscape renders the SVG in the given resolution (148x33). Either inkscape's rendering is suboptimal (any other implementation doing better?), or the SVG is such is not optimized for the resolution. The text has a fill color, a border color and a glow. Perhaps that's simply too much for a low resolution. I think it's quite common that it is necessary to optimize SVG icons for small sizes, like the 16x16 version of some icons. Artists will know more about that.
I'm wondering if the text is really needed in the UI at all - there is now a beautiful Logo, that helps clearly differentiate between digiKam and showFoto. From a usability perspective it doesn't look like the text serves a clear purpose (my thought), on the other hand, it seems to add a bit of clutter. I think of other great apps like krita 2 or firefox that pay a lot of attention to the UI and don't have big static text in their main window. Also, the app name will be part of the window border decoration for most if not all users.
Created attachment 31162 [details] digiKam banner text
(In reply to comment #7) > Created an attachment (id=31162) [details] > digiKam banner text > Ah, first time when I send attachment and this forgets text what I typed... But I write it again... The original text is white text, black 0.1pt outline with black shadow. This was for dark/light themes. Problem was that the SVG -> PNG renders the black outline little too strong. So the contrast was too great. On darker theme the text was fine. Now it is changed, as you can see on the earlier attachment, to almost middlegray, (litte lighter) without outline and shadow. Font is still same "Liberation Sans" as on splash and elsewhere. The logo itself is link to digikam.org site, and on this test I typed the address there so people will understand where it goes. This text has one problem, it takes space on small screens (netbooks). But, the icon itself has important meaning to be used as "working" icon in future. Currently the logo circles (lightment does not work right as you can see) when you download photos from camera etc. One of the idea is to make text go round (in X axis) as 3D text (need to be modeled and rendered possible MNG image) or text what lights or other small effect with the lens, when downloading photos etc. Gilles need to choose something to that ;-) But I think that link is important in a way, because if you can find the gerhard maded PDF documentation etc from the site. When comparing this to Adobe Photoshop etc. What has the link to Adobe site on the top of the toolbox, this is not in such place that you can accidental hit it with mouse.
Fri: now it is looking way better, really great, thanks!! I really like the new grey text instead of outlined-white. Also I see that you guys have plans for the text to convey info in later versions. In the mockup though you can see some curious "pixelation" or noise surrounding the letters, very weird in a PNG. I would expect this stuff in a JPG but not in a bitmap. Look like there is some issue in the SVG>PVG conversion? worst case a little retouching by hand will fix this easily.
please push this into showfoto as well :)
Do we really need this big application name anyway? When resizing showFoto to 1024px width, the only "action" that doesn't fit on the toolbar anymore is the application name. I mean I know what app I'm currently using (at least it works with all the other ones I have started right now :-)), so why display the name (in the size of two toolbar buttons) at all? Andi
Created attachment 31282 [details] name as big as 2 1/2 buttons I think digiKam and showFoto already have too many actions in the toolbar, on 1024px width they don't fit in there. But as you can see here, the name itself takes space that could be used for 2 actions! I don't think we should use the names in there...
both showfoto and digikam banners are upadted on svn (0.11 branch) please take a look Gilles
On my laptop screen the logo is still frayed, at least when used with the default theme. It looks better with a dark theme though. Andi
What's about this file ? It can be closed with 2.x releases ? Gilles Caulier
I think this can be closed - definitely no longer an issue in 2.x releases