Bug 362631 - KAlarm icon is indistinct and unrecognisable at smaller sizes
Summary: KAlarm icon is indistinct and unrecognisable at smaller sizes
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: Breeze
Classification: Plasma
Component: Icons (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Other Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: visual-design
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2016-05-03 16:52 UTC by David Jarvie
Modified: 2017-02-05 22:58 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:


Attachments
Icons shown in the system tray (98.33 KB, image/png)
2017-01-19 09:41 UTC, David Jarvie
Details

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Description David Jarvie 2016-05-03 16:52:41 UTC
The KAlarm icon looks like just a greenish blob at smaller sizes, and gives no clue visually as to what it represents. Having seen it in the system tray in two different distros, I couldn't make out what it was. Finally I looked at it in git and discovered that it has a digital time shown inside the green disc. Even at 48x48 this is not all that distinct, so it's not surprising that it doesn't work at smaller sizes.

Could you please look into modifying it so that it is actually recognisable at sizes between 32x32 and 16x16. I doubt if text inside the disc is capable of working at small sizes, so as far as I can see, it really needs a redesign.

I'm the KAlarm author.

Frameworks version 5.22.

Reproducible: Always
Comment 1 andreas 2016-05-03 16:58:34 UTC
will have to find a usefull new icon. is the icon used in the system tray too?
Comment 2 David Jarvie 2016-05-04 10:56:10 UTC
Yes, the KAlarm icon is used in the system tray as well. Note that KAlarm uses three variations of its icon in the system tray to indicate its status, with the following icon names:
  - 'kalarm': the normal icon, indicating that all alarms are enabled.
  - 'kalarm-disabled': indicates that all alarms are currently disabled. In the icons shipped with KAlarm, this is simply a monochrome version of the 'kalarm' icon.
  - 'kalarm-partdisabled': indicates that some alarms are currently disabled. In the icons shipped with KAlarm, this is the 'kalarm' icon with a small 'x' in the bottom right corner.

If you run KAlarm and disable alarms, you will see that the system tray icon changes from the Breeze icon to one of the icons shipped in the KAlarm package. When alarms are re-enabled, the icon changes back to the Breeze icon.

You can see the icons packaged with KAlarm at https://quickgit.kde.org/?p=kdepim.git&a=tree&h=502b1ab43c82229a48e214abc7bd3969e7e2f8df&hb=13334822110ee656602e0f449faad1bb6a26500f&f=kalarm%2Fsrc%2Fpixmaps
Comment 3 Thomas Pfeiffer 2016-05-04 11:08:45 UTC
The systray should not use icons fromt he Application category, anyway, because those are colored whereas systray icons are black and white.

That said: I agree that the current KAlarm icon is too complex for smaller sizes. What a Google search for "alarm icon" shows is that the most common metaphors for alarm are either a mechanical alarm clock or a bell.
Both are not "modern", but easily identifiable even in small sizes with few details. Maybe we should just stick with the classic metaphors, same as the "floppy disk = save".
Comment 4 David Jarvie 2016-05-04 12:03:36 UTC
Note that the kalarm-disabled and kalarm-partdisabled icons provided by the KAlarm package are only used in the system tray, whereas the kalarm icon (also provided by the KAlarm package, as well as Breeze) is used both in the system tray and as a general purpose application icon.

If systray icons are always supposed to be black and white, perhaps the kalarm-disabled icon, which currently is monochrome to distinguish it from the coloured 'kalarm' icon, should be provided by Breeze as the normal icon with a big diagonal line through it. Just an idea.
Comment 5 andreas 2016-05-06 20:58:53 UTC
Hi David,

for the system tray icons please have a look at the action icons chronometer-xxx should they work for you or do you want bells?

If you need same usability feedback the vdg has also great experience in usability. your app is very feature rich. it is difficult to have so much features easy to use for the users.
Comment 6 David Jarvie 2016-05-08 00:15:30 UTC
I tried out the 24x24 chronometer icons. The 'chronometer' icon doesn't look obviously connected to KAlarm at all, and it's also completely different from the other chronometer icons. The basic idea might work in the system tray, with the normal kalarm icon being the same as chronometer-start but with the arrow in the middle removed (i.e. an empty circle). Since the normal status of KAlarm is to have alarms enabled, I don't think it's appropriate to show the arrow in the 'kalarm' icon.

I don't see a suitable icon for kalarm-disabled or kalarm-partdisabled. For me, the chronometer-pause icon doesn't convey a disabled meaning if the normal 'kalarm' icon doesn't have the arrow in the middle. Perhaps some other variations on the same basic idea might work for these two icons, though.
Comment 7 andreas 2016-07-20 18:47:02 UTC
I add a kalarm icon to the breeze plasma theme (monochrome bell) hope you like it.

https://github.com/KDE/plasma-framework/blob/master/src/desktoptheme/breeze/icons/kalarm.svgz
Comment 8 David Jarvie 2016-12-20 13:38:20 UTC
The bell icon is good. However, at least under Fedora 23, the bell icon is only shown when alarms are enabled. The previous "greenish blob" Breeze icon is shown when individual alarms are disabled (icon name kalarm-partdisabled), and the old KAlarm icon (pre-Breeze) is shown when all alarms are disabled (icon name kalarm-disabled).

In addition, the "greenish blob" icon still seems to be used in all other circumstances, regardless of the icon size shown. Because it is so indistinct at icon sizes smaller than 64x64 (and even at 64x64 it still isn't particularly obvious what it is until you look carefully), I really think that the icon needs a redesign.

At the very least, the current icon shouldn't be used at sizes smaller than 64x64, and the new kalarm-disabled and kalarm-partdisabled icons need to be provided.
Comment 9 andreas 2017-01-04 22:14:49 UTC
Git commit eca9bf79a39cc553ce2faa413110322bb8d94d86 by andreas kainz.
Committed on 04/01/2017 at 22:14.
Pushed by andreask into branch 'master'.

update kalarm icon

T  +169  -1    icons-dark/apps/48/kalarm.svg
T  +169  -1    icons/apps/48/kalarm.svg

https://commits.kde.org/breeze-icons/eca9bf79a39cc553ce2faa413110322bb8d94d86
Comment 10 andreas 2017-01-04 22:15:58 UTC
does it fit now?
Comment 11 David Jarvie 2017-01-05 13:01:37 UTC
I really like that now - thank you.

The only problem remaining is that it still shows the old KDE 4 monochrome icon in the system tray when all alarms are disabled (icon name 'kalarm-disabled'), which doesn't fit with the new bell icons. All other icons (in the system tray and elsewhere) are fine - they use the icon names 'kalarm' and 'kalarm-partdisabled'.
Comment 12 andreas 2017-01-17 22:42:41 UTC
Git commit aacf4f9aa485e615e7c18a61ca37dbf4dba2439f by andreas kainz.
Committed on 17/01/2017 at 22:42.
Pushed by andreask into branch 'master'.

update kalarm icon

M  +-    --    src/desktoptheme/breeze/icons/kalarm.svgz

https://commits.kde.org/plasma-framework/aacf4f9aa485e615e7c18a61ca37dbf4dba2439f
Comment 13 David Jarvie 2017-01-19 09:41:23 UTC
Created attachment 103523 [details]
Icons shown in the system tray

I installed the new icon into /usr/share/plasma/desktoptheme/default/icons/, logged out and deleted /var/tmp/kdecach-..., but the old KDE 4 icon is still shown in the panel's hidden icon menu when alarms are disabled. Also, the bell icon is always black, never grey, regardless of the enabled/disabled state of KAlarm.

I attach screenshots showing the system tray tooltip and hidden icon menu, for the 3 KAlarm states: active, partly disabled and fully disabled. As you will see, they show 3 black bell icons, all identical, and one KDE 4 icon.
Comment 14 andreas 2017-01-24 20:14:25 UTC
Git commit c65edd7167155657de1324b9360a90601ad79ad0 by andreas kainz.
Committed on 24/01/2017 at 20:13.
Pushed by andreask into branch 'master'.

KAlarm icon is indistinct and unrecognisable at smaller sizes

M  +-    --    src/desktoptheme/breeze/icons/kalarm.svgz

https://commits.kde.org/plasma-framework/c65edd7167155657de1324b9360a90601ad79ad0
Comment 15 David Jarvie 2017-01-26 10:39:22 UTC
I don't see any difference after installing the latest icon. When alarms are disabled, the system tray icon still uses the Oxygen 'kalarm-disabled' icon, not the Breeze bell icon. The system tray tooltip still shows a black (not grey) bell no matter what the enabled/disabled status is.

As before, I installed the new icon into /usr/share/plasma/desktoptheme/default/icons/, logged out and deleted /var/tmp/kdecach-... before trying it out.
Comment 16 David Jarvie 2017-01-26 19:00:21 UTC
I'm sorry, but I've just discovered that the code in kalarm used to display the icons was causing the Oxygen icon to be shown. Also, the icons show differently in two different systems - overwriting the existing icons in Fedora 23 doesn't fix things, but in a self-built KDE Applications 16.04 (which is the latest I can build because of the new QtWebEngine dependency), I installed the new icons and they all appear as the bell icon, with differences depending on the enabled/disabled state.

The only comment I would make is that at small icon sizes there isn't much difference between the three icons - I think it might be better to make the pause and stop symbols (for kalarm-disabled and kalarm-partdisabled) a bit bigger so that they are clearer.
Comment 17 andreas 2017-02-05 22:58:29 UTC
thanks for the feedback the size of the pause, stop symbols are the same than for any other icon so it's defined in the HIGs.