Bug 446846

Summary:	[PROPOSAL] Icons should only use colors that are defined in the color scheme
Product:	[Plasma] Breeze	Reporter:	SolidTemperature0 <i6icgp6>
Component:	Icons	Assignee:	visual-bugs-null
Status:	RESOLVED INTENTIONAL
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	kainz.a, nate
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Other
OS:	Other
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments:	Okular's icon using nord palette Okular's icon with breeze palette

Description SolidTemperature0 2021-12-11 18:31:41 UTC

After bug 395569 and https://invent.kde.org/frameworks/breeze-icons/-/merge_requests/192 the next, definitely ambitious, move would be to have all the icons colors depend on the current color scheme used by the user. I'm not even sure if this is actually possible, or better, if it would look good, with the currents icons.
For sure we would need to expand the colors schemes to not only include colors that have a role, but also colors that will be used in place of similar shade of that color. For example a color scheme would need to define a color "Red" that will be used everytime an icon (or an application) needs the color red (right know someone could define the accent color, or ForegroundNegative, but nothing can, correctly, prevent them to be defined as a shade of yellow for example).
A good question that I can't answer is which colors would be needed to be defined. A good start I think may be the seven rainbow colors plus black, gray and white. Others may be needed too. Note also that breeze already has at least those colors defined already https://develop.kde.org/hig/style/color/default/

Finally note that this would also help the creators of custom icons pack that don't have to care anymore about support various color schemes.

Comment 1 SolidTemperature0 2021-12-12 00:25:32 UTC

This could also been used to fix bug 429016 (and similar problem of dark icons over dark backgrounds) by using light background when using dark color schemes (maybe we should add an option to the color schemes to identify itself as dark or light). For example the Konsole icon can automatically became dark theme compatible by using a white/light gray background an a black/dark gray angle bracket.

Comment 2 Nate Graham 2021-12-13 17:13:24 UTC

Hmm, it's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure it would be better, sorry. In general colorful icons only have a few colors where it makes sense to respect the color scheme. Getting *all* colors from the color scheme would just result in a visual mess when using some of the more unusual color schemes.

Comment 3 SolidTemperature0 2021-12-13 23:37:39 UTC

Created attachment 144527 [details]
Okular's icon using nord palette

That's the reason of the new colors field. Having a "red" or "green" field prevents color scheme makers to set them to some strange color (at least if they are not completely sure about what they are doing). At the end we would end up with icons that adapts automatically to the palette of the used color scheme (if they have been correctly defined in the color scheme).
This is an example of what should happen using Okular's icon and the nord palette (I have done this simple changing the color of the icon from their original value to the respective one in nord)

Comment 4 SolidTemperature0 2021-12-13 23:38:48 UTC

Created attachment 144528 [details]
Okular's icon with breeze palette

And this the current okular icon, just for reference.