I concur. My vision isn't awful, but it isn't great either and the new monochrome icons are difficult to make out when using a light-colored plasma theme. Having a means to revert to the full-colored icons used in all previous versions of KDE would be helpful.

It should at least use the Text color when it wants to use monochrome icons.

*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***

Created attachment 51022 [details]
Inconsistent color/bw icons

The b/w icons also look inconsistent when you have non-kde applications running on the system tray (like wicd in my case -- see attachment).  There should definitely be away to revert to colored icons quickly and easily.

Reading some of the other discussions online, some people say this feature has existed in the Mac for years.  I agree, but in the Mac world where the "system tray" is up on the menu, it works well.  When I first saw this in Windows 7 I thought it was totally inconsistent: you have a very colorful, very attractive desktop and you stick 1990-style icons on it.  Seeing this in KDE 4.5 just made me upset.  It's like sticking a stick figure next to the Mona Lisa and claiming it makes it more beautiful.

changing the plasma theme will solve the issue.

*** Bug 248760 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

(In reply to comment #6)
> changing the plasma theme will solve the issue.

Why should anyone have to change the plasma theme in order to see the systray icons better? What color is the default plasma theme? What color are the default systray icons? Are you seeing the point here?

The fix should be simple. Just devise a way to switch to the regular full color icons.

The tray icons are now handled by plasma theme instead of the application (I think), so it is impossible to “revert” to colored icons. But there should be a way of choosing a system tray theme as well.

(And I do like the white icons even though I have transparent panel and a bright background), they have a grey outline.

Go to system settings >> system administration >> startup and shutdown >> service manager >> and disable the "Status Notifier Manager" (deselect and also click stop if you want the changes to apply now).

This will also disable the new status notifier management that enables Plasma to provide themed icons for the systray and also the integration between plasma and all the applications that are using the new systray protocol.

Wicd does not implement the new protocol and because of that it stays "not themed". There is nothing that we (kde) can do for applications that are not properly implementing the new protocol.

If you want to use the new features of the protocol but has problems with the theme, you will need to change the theme (or the artists may help providing graphics with more contrast for example).

His point seems to be that you recommend him changing the theme but the *default* theme IS white/lightgrey and so he thinks - which is a good point - that having white icons on light background is not good.

I am quite happy with the default plasma theme ("Air"), I would like to switch the icons to have more differentiation in them - without the need to disable the "Status Notifier Manager".

The solution would be to be able to configure the custom theme to use icons from different theme. The best would be to have the colored icon theme (or any other icon theme with more differentiation) as a default.

If somebody likes the colored icon theme more than any other, it would be great to have the possibility to change it.

Especially for people who have a lot non-kde-applications running it‘d be nice to be able to change icon themes because it looks bad when having three black and white icons and five colored icons in tray ;) (that is why I tend to hide all the colored icons).
Why not make plasma a step more configurable and allow the user chosing between tray icon themes. :)

"Especially for people who have a lot non-kde-applications"

the kde and non-kde scenarios are not that much different in the coloured vs monochrome dpt, actually. non-system/hardware service icons from KDE apps are not monochrome either. items like wicd are exceptions, but as Artur said, there's nothing we can do about it.

"able to change icon themes"

it is part of the desktop svg theme, so people can indeed create icon themes and choose to use that theme. (and given that themes inherit from one another, one only needs to make the icons if that's all they want.) so it is already configurable.

talking with the artists i don't think there is much more that we are going to do with this one other than refinements of the icons over time.

additional icon svg's would be welcome as contributions from others.

So it is possible that I edit for example the klipper scissors icon with inkscape and just copy in the original colored one? Okay.

Aaron, I don't see the point of your recommendation. Do you really recommend people finding the default icon theme decreasing usability (little differentiation) to read the documentation, study theme files and modify them?

The themes are customizable a lot now, you can choose the color theme, panel background, widged background, shutdown dialog (all in one dialog)... But the icons cannot be chosen from the different theme, so I don't see the point of creating different Air themes just to change the icons.

I can choose the icon theme on my desktop easily (via GUI), but I'm not able to change icon theme of the system tray. Moreover, those two themes are different.

This bug isn't about the problem that something is colored or not, but that the theme icons decrease usability. Changing the icons would solve the problem, but I would like to see it in some usable way (editing files by hand doesn't increase usability).

Thanks.

If you disagree with my arguments, feel free to close the bug again. I will not reopen it again.

a) do not reopen bugs. that is not for you to decide. that is for the developers working on the code to decide. by re-opening bugs you simply elevate the number of clicks the triage team goes through in a day. not fun.

b) please read comment #14 again. you can replace JUST the icons in a new theme and the rest of the theme will fall back to Air. (or any other set of themes you choose). this is a pre-existing feature of the plasma desktop svg themes.

I can understand why this issue is not part of Plasma.  However, closing the bug with "won't fix" sends the message that the developers don't care about the users.  I guess we'll have to go over to the themes area and open up a bug over there to get this fixed.  It would have been nice, instead of closing this bug with an implied "I don't give a rat's posterior about what the users have to say about a change" to have it transferred to the right people.

(Sorry to be so rude, but I believe the response from the developers has been condescending.  Being in software development myself, I know very well I will never please 100% of the users.  Getting frustrated over complaints simply shows immaturity in software development, IMO.  One has to learn to put emotions aside and capture and resolve the real problems, and not try to "fix" the user.)

In any case, if this feature is desired in KDE as whole, I would recommend this get implemented in Plasma instead of the theme.  That way, other icons which don't belong to the theme can be made B&W and made to fit in.  Then, you can put different kind of effects on how the icons in the system tray will be displayed, such as full color, black and white, pastel, etc.

"I would recommend this get implemented in Plasma instead of the theme."

Plasma uses the theme for  such visual design implementations. that's a core part of the design, seen not just in the tray but throughout Plasma. did you know that themes can even define some of the animations?

"That way, other icons which don't belong to the theme can be made B&W and made to fit in."

that's already supported, and has been from the beginning of this feature.

please, before you lecture us, take the time to look at the software instead of guessing. or, instead of making recommendations about things you haven't looked into, you could ask questions and we'll more than likely answer. it's a far more congenial approach compared to lecturing us. 

this is why we, as developers, end up less than impressed with these conversations: people who really haven't taken the time to educate themselves as to how things work or what is possible write off the wall lectures for us about how the software ought to work. to top it off, you then  advise us on our social skills. irony abounds, but that doesn't make it less distasteful.

i'm honestly not frustrated with this report (i'm fairly used to dealing with these kinds of interactions by now), but i do find some of the responses, in particular #18 to be very unfortunate and distasteful and certainly not in line with what is expected within KDE.

in case you are wondering what our expectations for interaction are, here is the baseline:

    http://www.kde.org/code-of-conduct/

if you feel i've transgressed that, please point it out to me (private email welcome as well). i'm not sure what points you found condescending (unless by that you meant, "They refused to change their opinion."), but am open to feedback on that. in return, i'd ask that if you wish to continue interacting with our community via mechanisms such as bugs.kde.org that you also try to reflect the principles in our shared code of conduct.

i think it is really unfortunate that an issue like "the icons are monochrome" leads to someone calling into question the maturity and sociability of those who are working the hardest on these things. it erodes the enjoyability of doing this and it actually chases people away. here's one example of that: http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/4131?page=1

these are the kinds of things our code of conduct is meant to help prevent. but it requires that we actually do our best to operate within the spirit of it. otherwise, we're just tearing down our own community.

and if you really do want to see how much we care about the users of this software, look at it this way: i don't have to spend my free time dealing with these kinds of issues (it's the weekend right now!), doubly so for people who are condescending and uninformed. instead, i and hundreds of others do so. we work very hard, and spend a lot of time, _our_ time, dealing with reports in places like bugs.kde.org. we do this because we believe in what we're doing and because, incidents like this aside, we enjoy it.

ah, one point i forgot to cover:

"closing the bug with "won't fix" sends the message that the developers don't care about the users."

one could read this as implying that the only appropriate response is to simply agree with the request no matter how correct it is. "wontfix" is simply a statement of fact, not an emotional response or somehow revealing of hidden intention or attitude.

let's look at the other options besides "wontfix": fixed (it isn't), invalid (it's a valid request), later or remind (not accurate, as we aren't going to take action on this later), duplicate (it isn't), worksforme (not appropriate in this case), upstream or downstream (it is a plasma issue), waitingforinfo (we aren't), backtrace (it isn't the kind of report that benefits from a backtrace) and unmaintained (the system tray is certainly maintained :)

perhaps you could suggest which of those resolutions is more accurate to the actual result? in lieu of that, making accusations like "you don't care about users" because of factual responses within the limits of the fairly constrained bug reporting system doesn't help anything at all. it just makes our jobs harder. so for all of our sakes', please try to be less sensitive about which of the 12 available status tags we select. thanks.

I think the best for this bug isn't closing as WON'T FIX, but changing it to a feature request - to have the icon theme configurable. Changing the configurtation files doesn't look as comfortable as other things that are already configurable via a GUI in Plasma.

If you have 20 users voting for this bug, I would say that closing the bug as WON'T FIX doesn't make anyone happy (I personally don't like this kind of resulution too).

My question here is this: if somebody creates new icon set, is it possible for him to deliver only his icon set (with needed configuration files of course) for use in any user's selected (non-default) plasma theme without changing any further files on the user's computer? This is what I'm searching for - possibility to download the icon theme and just using it - the "just works" thing.

I'm also a developper (but my time is fully reserved to other projects), so I always try to look for solutions together with people. So I - as an ordinary KDE user - would like to see a discussion about the solution in GUI rather than changing theme files by hand.

Look at the problem from the user's perspective (=where can I click to change it?), not from the developper's perspective (=where can I write a line to change it?) :-) Software is for people and I see that KDE is trying to do as much as possible in this area and this bug tries to make some more people happy while using their favourite operating system.

Thanks for listening.

What we just need is an easy way for the user to change those icons - not a discussion about the decision of the devs.

Please see also Bug 243498

Oldřich: "feature request - to have the icon theme configurable"

it. already. is.

@Peter: "an easy way for the user to change those icons"

an svg theme with icon files in it, select that theme.

(In reply to comment #23)
> Oldřich: "feature request - to have the icon theme configurable"
> 
> it. already. is.

Thanks. I will try to find it.

Currently when I chose another icon theme (System Settings/Application Appearance/Icons), the Amarok icon changed in the system tray. Probably other icons (klipper, Device notifier, Batery monitor, KMix) are not included in other themes, so that they didn't change - if that is what you mean.

I obviously didn't communicate my point in my first post, so I'll try again.

If I understand correctly, this is an icon theme issue.  The notifications area is simply displaying what the theme says.  If that is the case, then we (as users) need to take the issue to the theme creators.

I have created issue #250909 which refers to this discussion in hopes of passing this information on to the artists that created that theme.  What I would have liked to have seen is the bug forwarded to the artists instead of a discussion and a "won't fix" resolution by these developers.

(In reply to comment #25)
> If I understand correctly, this is an icon theme issue.  The notifications area
> is simply displaying what the theme says.  If that is the case, then we (as
> users) need to take the issue to the theme creators.
> 
> I have created issue #250909 which refers to this discussion in hopes of
> passing this information on to the artists that created that theme.  What I
> would have liked to have seen is the bug forwarded to the artists instead of a
> discussion and a "won't fix" resolution by these developers.

I'm not sure if we still need something from developpers. From Aarons comment in bug #243498 I understand the switching of the icon theme isn't possible, but he wrote that it _is_ possible in this bug.

Is this a Plasma theme problem or Icon theme problem? I don't understand what should I do to actually fix the problem.

I've had a look at plasma themes and I didn't find anything about icons. I also didn't find the place where the BW icons are currently stored to change them.

Aaron/anybody, can you give me some hint?

aseigo@liberty:~> ls `kde4-config --prefix`/share/apps/desktoptheme/default/icons/

audio.svgz  battery.svgz  device.svgz  klipper.svgz  kwalletmanager.svgz  nepomuk.svgz  network.svgz  notification.svgz  preferences.svgz  wallet.svgz

i've also added documentation for this to:

http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Plasma/ThemeDetails

Thanks for the link and the documentation!

A set of Plasma (>=4.5) system tray icons matching (using icons from) the Oxygen icon theme is now available from:
http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=134914
*** BRING SOME COLOR INTO YOUR PLASMA >= 4.5.0 SYSTEM TRAY! ***

*** Bug 241933 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Re comment #29: Kevin, the icons are brilliant. I have them installed and working now. Thank you very much for your efforts. I agree with your reasoning to retain the original notification.svgz icon.

Well I‘d rather like having ALL the tray icons in black and white. So, also Kopete‘s smiley face, Amarok‘s “dog” ;) and KGet and such. But the Plasma developers (again) made a (inconvenient) decision that system services will be black and white and applications stay colored. And well THIS is just inconsistent and looks really really bad. The reason why I hide almost all tray icons except for kmix, mail ntoifier, network manager (because they are black and white).
And it looks so bad having those mixed to gether. I could understand that the application icons should stay colored (they cannot recognize the theme settings of plasma) but then at least have them separated with a spacer like Windows does since Vista. So having black and white colored system icons on the right, then a spacer and then the colored application icons.
And guess what? The color/grey IS THE SEPARATION. Ehm, wtf? People, this is just redicilous and looks really bad.