Bug 309767 - Since update to 4.9.3 KDE SC version, the size of Plasma Panel icons don't change gradually when you resize the Panel
Summary: Since update to 4.9.3 KDE SC version, the size of Plasma Panel icons don't ch...
Status: RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED
Alias: None
Product: plasma4
Classification: Unmaintained
Component: panel (show other bugs)
Version: 4.9.3
Platform: openSUSE Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Plasma Bugs List
URL:
Keywords:
: 309859 310275 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2012-11-08 19:43 UTC by VaryHeavy
Modified: 2018-01-23 22:53 UTC (History)
12 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:


Attachments
revert revision c6160d14 (1.88 KB, patch)
2012-11-18 16:13 UTC, painless roaster
Details
A screenshot of a panel with mixed sized icons (904.58 KB, image/png)
2012-11-19 09:25 UTC, Victor B. Gonzalez
Details

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Description VaryHeavy 2012-11-08 19:43:30 UTC
I am using KDE 4.9 in OpenSUSE x86_64, and KDE was updated to 4.9.3 version 2 days ago. Since then, I saw that Plasma Panel icons size had changed. Now, when you are resizing the Panel, the icons size is not changing gradually as before. Here http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/7203/instantnea30.png you can see what I am telling. I am using Icon-Only Task Manager, and you can see the difference between the icons of the anchored applications in Icon-Only Task Manager and the Main Menu and Show Desktop icons.

When you increases the panel size, the icons of Icon-Only Task Manager are scaled gradually, but the icons anchored in Plasma Panel don't change their size at the same time, but suddenly changed its size only to a certain height. You can see it in the next images:
http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/5508/instantnea31.png
http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/5923/instantnea32.png

In the first image you can see clearly the difference between Panel anchored icons and Icon-Only Task Manager anchored icons. In the second image I increased a bit little the panel size, and you can see how suddenly increases the Panel anchored icons size.
This forces always to use a default size for icons all look the same size.

Tray icons are also smaller than before.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Update to 4.9.3 KDE SC version.
2. Drop anchor some applications to the panel.
3. Resize the panel.
Actual Results:  
What I have explained above.

Expected Results:  
The anchored applications icons in Plasma Panel should change gradually when you resize the panel, as before.
Comment 1 Christoph Feck 2012-11-08 21:29:58 UTC
It's very interesting to read what people today see as a major bug.

The icons use specific sizes, because at other sizes, they look blurry. Some people like them blurry, so changing severity to wishlist.
Comment 2 VaryHeavy 2012-11-09 00:18:23 UTC
The importance, on the one hand, is aesthetics, but in the other hand is functional, forcing you to expand the panel size and making you lose workspace.
Why was the real reason for make this change?
Comment 3 Christoph Feck 2012-11-10 14:58:18 UTC
*** Bug 309859 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 4 Kai Uwe Broulik 2012-11-10 15:05:51 UTC
It has been that way for 4 years now, and then we change it for no reason in a *minor* release? So much for Freezes …
Comment 5 VaryHeavy 2012-11-11 20:17:07 UTC
(In reply to comment #4)
> It has been that way for 4 years now, and then we change it for no reason in
> a *minor* release? So much for Freezes …

Completely agree.
Comment 6 Victor B. Gonzalez 2012-11-16 18:55:46 UTC
There is no way you can add this as a 'wishlist' request. This is undoubtedly a bug that interferes with the aesthetics of the KDE panels. This corrupt size issue also affects the Quicklaunch plasma widget and those icons sitting next to bigger ones look obvious and broken.
Comment 7 Christoph Feck 2012-11-16 21:32:41 UTC
Sorry, it is not a bug, because the change was intended.

Icons in KDE are offered in certain discrete sizes, because of limitations in Qt. Even with most of them generated from scalable vector graphics (SVG) files, icons are not truely scalable, because Qt cannot render the SVG files properly. Our icons are converted using other tools (I believe InkScape or even proprietary programs) to bitmapped (PNG) images, so that KDE can load them correctly.

The effect of this is that when loading these PNG files, and not using them in their native resolution, they look blurry. In fact, speaking about aesthetics, we should not tolerate blurry icons, and the commit message explicitely states this as the reason for the change (and it has also been mentioned in comment #1).

It would be a bug, if the "hit box" was affected, but as far as I can see, the panel area monitored for mouse clicks did not change. In case you find more places, where blurry icons are used, please report those separately.
Comment 8 VaryHeavy 2012-11-17 18:44:11 UTC
(In reply to comment #7)
> Sorry, it is not a bug, because the change was intended.
> 
> Icons in KDE are offered in certain discrete sizes, because of limitations
> in Qt. Even with most of them generated from scalable vector graphics (SVG)
> files, icons are not truely scalable, because Qt cannot render the SVG files
> properly. Our icons are converted using other tools (I believe InkScape or
> even proprietary programs) to bitmapped (PNG) images, so that KDE can load
> them correctly.
> 
> The effect of this is that when loading these PNG files, and not using them
> in their native resolution, they look blurry. In fact, speaking about
> aesthetics, we should not tolerate blurry icons, and the commit message
> explicitely states this as the reason for the change (and it has also been
> mentioned in comment #1).
> 
> It would be a bug, if the "hit box" was affected, but as far as I can see,
> the panel area monitored for mouse clicks did not change. In case you find
> more places, where blurry icons are used, please report those separately.

But the problem is that icons size don't work on all resolutions. This means that you are forced to use predetermined sizes of the Plasma panel, which in many cases is either too small or too large for some resolutions, unless you don't mind the contrast of the icons size.
Comment 9 Victor B. Gonzalez 2012-11-18 00:20:01 UTC
(In reply to comment #7)
> Sorry, it is not a bug, because the change was intended.
> 
> Icons in KDE are offered in certain discrete sizes, because of limitations
> in Qt. Even with most of them generated from scalable vector graphics (SVG)
> files, icons are not truely scalable, because Qt cannot render the SVG files
> properly. Our icons are converted using other tools (I believe InkScape or
> even proprietary programs) to bitmapped (PNG) images, so that KDE can load
> them correctly.
> 
> The effect of this is that when loading these PNG files, and not using them
> in their native resolution, they look blurry. In fact, speaking about
> aesthetics, we should not tolerate blurry icons, and the commit message
> explicitely states this as the reason for the change (and it has also been
> mentioned in comment #1).
> 
> It would be a bug, if the "hit box" was affected, but as far as I can see,
> the panel area monitored for mouse clicks did not change. In case you find
> more places, where blurry icons are used, please report those separately.

What makes this bug a pest is if it truly was intentional. The appearance of the panels are now permanently messed up. I'm not upset that all the sizes have changed but only some and having a mix of different size icons on my panels is ugly.

Seriously, nothing was broken in 4.9.2, it looked great and now it's a mix up of small and bigger icons. It is not a nice fix.
Comment 10 vy 2012-11-18 08:04:23 UTC
(In reply to comment #7)

>In fact, speaking about
> aesthetics, we should not tolerate blurry icons

Sorry Christoph, but it seems like you don't have a clue what aesthetics is about and what should not be tolerated at first place. There are very basic properties of any visible object (including icons) - size and colour. They are most fundamental and thus very important to our visual perception in general and our aesthetic feelings in particular. And there are many more other, less important properties like image quality ('bluriness'), visual style, elegance and so on. The key difference between them is that basic  properties recognized instantly and measured equally by anyone - no one say, that icons are of the same size if they aren't, while such properties as 'bluriness' require some (very little, but still) time to recognize and is subject of personal preferences and prejudgments - if you, personally, could not tolerate some blurry icons, it's possible that preferences of other people may not coincide with yours, and this bugreport is perfectly illustrates this.
Comment 11 painless roaster 2012-11-18 10:24:27 UTC
Smooth icons are not blurred !!!
Please, release patch fixing it.
Comment 12 painless roaster 2012-11-18 15:07:17 UTC
+    QSize finalSize(iconSize.toSize());
+    //for small sizes, use a standard size
+    if (finalSize.width() < KIconLoader::SizeSmallMedium) {
+        finalSize = QSize(KIconLoader::SizeSmall, KIconLoader::SizeSmall);
+    } else if (finalSize.width() < KIconLoader::SizeMedium) {
+        finalSize = QSize(KIconLoader::SizeSmallMedium, KIconLoader::SizeSmallMedium);
+    } else if (finalSize.width() < KIconLoader::SizeLarge) {
+        finalSize = QSize(KIconLoader::SizeMedium, KIconLoader::SizeMedium);
+    }

Is it ?

only if (finalSize.width() < KIconLoader::SizeLarge) then 'resize is aesthetics problem' ? !!!
Comment 13 painless roaster 2012-11-18 16:13:24 UTC
Created attachment 75340 [details]
revert revision c6160d14

Here is patch for package kdelibs.
Please revert revision c6160d14. This is too stupid.
I am sorry for my bad english.
Comment 14 painless roaster 2012-11-18 17:00:18 UTC
*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***
Comment 15 VaryHeavy 2012-11-18 22:45:06 UTC
(In reply to comment #13)
> Created attachment 75340 [details]
> revert revision c6160d14
> 
> Here is patch for package kdelibs.
> Please revert revision c6160d14. This is too stupid.
> I am sorry for my bad english.

Sorry for my ignorance... but, does this patch fix the icons size problem?
How could I apply this patch?
Comment 16 Christoph Feck 2012-11-19 01:32:53 UTC
*** Bug 310275 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 17 Ivan Čukić 2012-11-19 07:13:38 UTC
System Icons -> Application Appearance -> Icons -> Advanced -> Set the maximum size for a panel icon.
Comment 18 painless roaster 2012-11-19 07:23:03 UTC
(In reply to comment #15)
> (In reply to comment #13)
> > Created attachment 75340 [details]
> > revert revision c6160d14
> > 
> > Here is patch for package kdelibs.
> > Please revert revision c6160d14. This is too stupid.
> > I am sorry for my bad english.
> 
> Sorry for my ignorance... but, does this patch fix the icons size problem?
Yes
> How could I apply this patch?
It depends on the your distribution
basic procedure:
  - download source package and unpacking
  - apply patch
  - compile
  - build package and install it
Comment 19 VaryHeavy 2012-11-19 07:30:18 UTC
(In reply to comment #18)
> It depends on the your distribution
> basic procedure:
>   - download source package and unpacking
>   - apply patch
>   - compile
>   - build package and install it

For OpenSUSE? Does it not has an stardard procedure?
Comment 20 Victor B. Gonzalez 2012-11-19 09:25:03 UTC
Created attachment 75353 [details]
A screenshot of a panel with mixed sized icons

Not sure if this helps to expose the problem. I created a default panel and made it huge, I changed the panel icon size to 256 and you can really see the difference in some areas. Namely the system tray icons seem hard coded to 22 and so does the Quicklaunch plasma widget icons.

Maybe the intended fix just brought about another bug?
Comment 21 painless roaster 2012-11-19 14:09:32 UTC
(In reply to comment #19)
> (In reply to comment #18)
> > It depends on the your distribution
> > basic procedure:
> >   - download source package and unpacking
> >   - apply patch
> >   - compile
> >   - build package and install it
> 
> For OpenSUSE? Does it not has an stardard procedure?
This it not simple.
Method for redhat like system:
 - download source rpm package (yumdownloader --source),
 - install it (rpm -ivh),
 - modify spec file (kdelib.spec) - add information about patch,
 - build package (rpmbuild -bb kdelib.spec).
Try to find an analogy for opensuse (or more shout to kde developers :-) ).
Comment 22 VaryHeavy 2012-11-19 15:36:53 UTC
(In reply to comment #21)
Do you really have the intention to fix the problem?
Comment 23 painless roaster 2012-11-19 16:32:10 UTC
(In reply to comment #22)
> (In reply to comment #21)
> Do you really have the intention to fix the problem?

Maybe yes.
Comment 24 Christoph Feck 2012-11-19 23:57:18 UTC
*** Bug 310388 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 25 Christoph Feck 2012-11-23 15:52:19 UTC
@Ivan, this entry is about being able to use arbitrary icon sizes, and I fail to see how using System Settings to change the icon size would affect the rounding down to fixed sizes, which is done since 4.9.3.
Comment 26 Ivan Čukić 2012-11-23 17:02:56 UTC
@Christoph My bad, replied on a wrong bug report.
Comment 27 Jekyll Wu 2012-11-23 17:20:28 UTC
Then reopen it
Comment 28 megabaks 2012-11-25 15:42:52 UTC
*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***
Comment 29 Alex 2012-11-25 15:46:02 UTC
Kubuntu 12.10, KDE 4.9.3
That's so weird that after resizing panel all apps icons scaled, but KDE menu icon remains the same size (small in my case, so now panel is 3 times wider than the icon)
I would very appreciate if you would correct this behaviour
Thanks
Comment 30 Simonas 2013-01-08 02:20:14 UTC
Most of the oxygen icons werent blurry when you resize it, mostly third party apps in which again you cant give any support. What can i tell is that now it looks disgusting. Christoph first comment stated that some people like blurry icons some dont, so aesthetically speaking both options are equal so why did you choose one? just because "you" think it looks better? now you are forced to resize your panel to make it huge to have good looking icons.
Comment 31 painless roaster 2013-01-20 11:51:00 UTC
For fedora/64 users patched kdelibs is here:
http://jx.dts-soft.cz/Fedora/JX/17/x86_64/
Comment 32 Nate Graham 2018-01-23 22:53:52 UTC
Ivan's workaround is still valid in Plasma 5, and Plasma 4 has been unsupported for several years.