Created attachment 128223 [details] Screenshot and proposed correction SUMMARY From icon sizes 48px and lower, dolphin switches from hires 32bpp icons to a lower resolution. This seems unnecessary, it should show hires icons in all sizes. STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Resize icon view to 48px 2. Icon display switches to lower resolution icons OBSERVED RESULT Ugly icons. EXPECTED RESULT Shiny icons. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Linux/KDE Plasma: Manjaro KDE KDE Plasma Version: 5.18.4 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.69.0 Qt Version: 5.14.2
The problem isn't the resolution per se, it's because you're using a 1x scale factor and there is no 48px size for folder icons. There is a pixel-perfect 32px size, and there is a pixel-perfect 64px size, but we don't provide 48px sizes. As a result, 48px folder icons look a bit blurry when using a 1x scale factor. There are a few different ways to fix this: 1. Use High DPI screen and a scale factor of 2x or more. With the appropriate hardware setup, your screen has enough pixels to display a scaled-down icon without it looking blurry. 2. Create and ship 48px versions of all folder/places icons. This would work, but would entail an *enormous* amount of work as there are a lot of these icons. Also it wouldn't work for
Oops. Allow me to continue... ...also even if we did that for Breeze, it wouldn't work for other icon themes since they would have to add appropriate new icons as well. In your screenshot, you're using Manjaro's Breath icon theme. So they would have to add new 48px versions for all the Places icons as well. It would be a ton of work for everyone. 3. We could remove the 48px icon size in Dolphin and jump from 32px to 48px. This would probably irritate people as it would amount to a loss of functionality simply to fix a very minor visual imperfection.
So now that you've seen the three available options, it should be clear that only one of them (number two) is actually a feasible, fixable solution. #1 is a hardware-based workaround only affecting you, and #3 is not nice to users. Moving to Breeze icons so the folks there can evaluate the proposal to add 48px Places icons.
There is another option, that seems to produce visually more appealing results: Do not upscale 32x32 for 48x48, instead downscale the 64x64 variants to 48x48. The attached screenshot demonstrates the visual upgrade on the right, which is a Dolphin with a fixed setting of 49x49. This demonstrates the downscale effect. Maybe, that is a solution? Btw., providing 48px size graphics for Breeze is actually something I could do (as a graphics designer), if that would make sense in the future. I actually never knew, that this "standard" windows icon size is ommited in the unix world.
Downscaling from 64 will still produce blurry lines. It might not be as bad, but it will not fully correct the problem. From what I can tell, the only way to definitively solve it is by creating 48px Places icons. Thanks for volunteering to take a look at that! It would be a great service. See https://hig.kde.org/style/icons/colorful/places.html. We could amend the HIG to recommend 48px sizes as well if you create appropriate icons.
"Downscaling from 64 will still produce blurry lines. It might not be as bad, but it will not fully correct the problem." Might not be as bad is my point - it is better :) Please think about it. Concerning the 48px icon for themes, would you mind writing a e-mail to me with further instructions? Which sets needs to be updated, in particular. This would go a little out of hand as discussion on a bugtracker :)
(In reply to knecker from comment #6) > "Downscaling from 64 will still produce blurry lines. It might not be as > bad, but it will not fully correct the problem." Might not be as bad is my > point - it is better :) Please think about it. > > Concerning the 48px icon for themes, would you mind writing a e-mail to me > with further instructions? Which sets needs to be updated, in particular. > This would go a little out of hand as discussion on a bugtracker :) You should consider asking in the VDG chatroom. Alternatively there is a mailing list. See https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved/design#Communication_and_Workflow
Fixed with D29739 / a3148c470784ec5604aba32270d54ff61fbfb331
Hi everyone, I just realised, that adding 48px icons to the official Breeze Icon set is not exactly, what I meant to be a problem in the first place. Though this is a fine addition, the idea of upscaling from 32px icons instead of downscaling from 64px icons when using 3rd party icon sets without 48px icon remains... It will look better to downscale, instead of upscaling imho.