Bug 501436

For example, this icons not have 32px icon size, but have 22px icon size:
kget-symbolic
kgpg-symbolic
kleopatra-symbolic
kmail-symbolic
konversation-symbolic
kopete-symbolic
korgac-symbolic
kruler-symbolic
kteatime-symbolic
ktorrent-symbolic

Created attachment 179362 [details]
Kirigami.Units.iconSizes.medium

Created attachment 179363 [details]
Kirigami.Units.iconSizes.smallMedium

See https://github.com/PapirusDevelopmentTeam/papirus-icon-theme/issues/3663 and https://github.com/PapirusDevelopmentTeam/papirus-icon-theme/issues/3923 for more context.

In principle, how icon themes arrange icons and what sizes they provide doesn't and shouldn't influence development here; the size we choose should be the size we want design-wise, and icon themes (including our own!) should adapt accordingly.

I gave this a try and switched to smallMedium icons, but the margins are enormous, and the visual proportions of the list items themselves are off, as shown in the "Kirigami.Units.iconSizes.smallMedium" attachment.

If I fix that by changing the margins to 0, then everything becomes more proportional and we end up with these skinny compact list items:

Created attachment 179377 [details]
Smaller icons and list items

This saves space, and feels fine to use with a mouse. But with a touchpad everything feels a bit small, and I think the larger click targets are beneficial there. With a touchscreen, even more so.

There's also an issue that if there are two lines of text (not shown in this screenshot, but possible), the text will feel really crammed in there. It won't look good.

Finally, there's usually not an advantage to saving so much space, since it just results in more whitespace in the popup. Most people aren't going to have enough app-provided tray icons in there to benefit from the items being more compact.

As such, due to these factors, my inclination is to say that the status quo is intentional, and any issues caused by icon themes (including our own Breeze icon theme!) should be fixed in the icon theme itself.

The text can be made to scroll automatically. 

Most third-party icon themes and even the Breeze icon theme are usually used for the tray on 16/22/24 - and these icons are already available in many themes, including third-party ones. Using the touchpad/tablet... I think there are many more users of regular PCs, especially for owners of small screens there is a zoom option in the display settings.
My personal opinion is that a monochrome icon with a size of 32px looks very strange, and for example, many themes do not have monochrome icons with a size higher than 16px at all.

Many users are not happy with the abundance of monochrome `-symbolic` icons that are so carefully implemented everywhere. The 32px icons could be regular and colored, with a unique style. Now we have a dull, monotonous interface. 
I agree, when a small icon is used, there are no questions here. But monochrome 32px icons don't look very nice.

There is a fixed size or scalable option in the widget settings. Why not apply this to the hidden menu widget? This will solve the problem with the tablet\touchscreen and blurred\missing icons in the icon themes.

If earlier we could have changed a lot of things in the Plasma theme, now it is impossible. The Papirus team is already restructuring its theme catalogs due to the introduction of `-symbolic` icons. And it's all for KDE. We love KDE and we're going to meet you halfway. And we expect the same from KDE.... We don't have 32px monochrome icons at all, and the 16x2 bypass method gives a bad result. You don't have these 32px icons, we don't! Why not solve this with a simple option in the widget settings - Fixed (small Medium ) / Scalable in the hidden menu?

I wish there was an option to use normal non-symbolic icons in the panel. Just a simple checkbox to toggle symbolic on/off. Some icon themes are just made to be colorful, and should be able to be presented as intended. This would also fix the blurry/missing icons issue mentioned.

The idea of using symbolic icons is good. But this only applies to small sizes. Its essence is simple: if you plan to use only monochrome icons, then adding the suffix "-symbolic" solves this problem.
HOWEVER, using large monochrome icons (32/48/64) spoils the user interface. He becomes boring, gray, and expressionless. It also limits the development of new icon themes and design. What can you draw so exquisitely in monochrome?
The problem is that neither Breeze nor other third-party themes have monochrome 32-pixel icons in large numbers. And it's not just widgets, it's hundreds, if not thousands of tray icons - telegram, discord, vlc, qbittorrent, ktorrent, cantata... etc. 
32px tray icons size is not avialable in almost icon themes. The icons will be blurred and zoomed from 22px.

If the Breeze icon theme solves this problem, use a simple script to add a symbolic link with the suffix `-symbolic` to all monochrome icons. In our theme, we must to restructure ALL catalogs, add new icons, remap all symlinks, fix bugs, redraw, test, study the timing of the source code, see where and why this icon was added or changed... It takes a lot of hours. Because we originally had a completely different directory structure.

Papirus have more 84000 files!!!

And don't forget that the icon theme can also be cross-platform. What about the XFCE, Mate, Cinnamon, LXQt, Pantheon, Budgie, GNOME?
And it's really hard to maintain so many desktop environments!!!
It's very hard for us and we would like the KDE developers to at least think a little about others developers and designers.

If the system tray asks for "foo-symbolic" at 32px size, there's nothing stopping an icon theme from providing only a colorful 32px icon named "foo" and then that will be used instead. You don't have to actually add a monochrome "foo-symbolic" 32ps icon if you don't want to.

The key word here is "only". Because if on icon theme available "foo-symbolic" 22px and "foo" 32px icons - the "foo-symbolic" icon will still be used for hidden menu, ignoring the dimensions and scaling the icon from 22px to 32px size.
You haven't answered the question why not just add a fixed and scalable size option for the hidden menu? It solves a lot of problems!

It's something we would need to address — if it's decided that it's worth addressing — in our icon loader implementation(In reply to varlesh from comment #15)
> The key word here is "only". Because if on icon theme available
> "foo-symbolic" 22px and "foo" 32px icons - the "foo-symbolic" icon will
> still be used for hidden menu, ignoring the dimensions and scaling the icon
> from 22px to 32px size.
Oh, I see what you mean now. This does seem like an issue. Can you please open a bug report about this specifically in frameworks-kiconthemes? Thanks a lot!


> You haven't answered the question why not just add a fixed and scalable size
> option for the hidden menu? It solves a lot of problems!
Because it would be over-configurability. If there, why not also in every other place where icons are shown, too? This issue is better fixed at a lower level like our icon loader where it can work better everywhere with no configuration needed.

Open https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=501500
Thank you. I hope that you will solve it.

With NM widget it's worked, if i'm add 32px colorfull icons and 22px symbolic icons.... But not with HideMenu tray

Created attachment 179410 [details]
32px colorfull + 22px symbolic (monochrome)