Re: Proposal for new art for GNU PSPP

[John Darrington]

You seem to have considered all these issues, and researched them well,
so if you believe the work needs no changes I'm happy with that.

Thanks for the detailed reply.

J'

On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 04:47:38AM -0400, Hugo Alejandro wrote:
     I'm no graphic designer, but I have closely followed the design
     guidelines of GNOME, so here are my answers.
     
     2013/7/4 John Darrington <address@hidden>:
     
     >
     > I have had a look through all the artwork.  I am not a graphic designer, 
but
     > here are my comments:
     >
     > The files named aplication-x-spss-* are misspelled ("application" has 
two Ps)
     
     
     →Yes, that was a mistake because my primary language (Spanish)
     application = aplicación
     
     
     > The gnome guidelines recommend NOT putting the paper background for icons
     > unless they have something to do with a physical piece of paper.
     > https://developer.gnome.org/hig-book/stable/icons-types.html.en
     
     
     →That's right, sim though, if I think PSPP files correspond to a
     physical piece of paper:
     
         - The product of PSPP are the results tables or graphs, which is
     managed on a virtual paper (export to another format) or is
     susceptible of being printed.
         - PSPP currently does not have a file format that handles only the
     results but can be easily obtained from the data.
     Moreover, the use of a piece of paper as background brings advantages:
         - The metaphor of the document is very useful in GNOME 3. By
     having as background a piece of paper, a user automatically identifies
     the file corresponds to a document.
         - The document icon silhouette allows readability when converted
     to formats icons low contrast or high contrast. (universal access).
         - It's easier to remember when comparing the type of document and
     the application function like (as the icon of a spreadsheet)
     
     Finally we must consider that the documents belong to the design
     guidelines of GNOME 2 and are not the most current
     (https://developer.gnome.org/hig-book/3.2/note-on-gnome3.html.en). So
     I followed pages GNOME shell design and GNOME 3 with designers blogs.
     In addition there are exceptions like the file icon of a website or
     working files "Blender", which realizes the importance of the metaphor
     of the document.
     
     
     > The application-x-spss-sav and application-x-spss-por icons differ only 
in
     > colour.  This would make it impossible for someone with colour blindness 
or
     > with a monochrome monitor to distinguish.  I suggest you make the 
distributions
     > depicted in these icons different shapes.  Simply flipping the image 
might be the
     > easiest way to do this.
     
     
     → The designs GNOME icons are based on simplicity and content of the
     files, so that they generally represent a function and can be used by
     more than one application. An example of what I mention, you can see
     the icons used to represent office files, so the text document icon
     represents content that can represent any text editor and so that icon
     is used for *.odt, *.doc, *docx, wordperfect document, etc.
     Under this premise, an icon for a statistical program should represent
     complex statistical content, so that icon could represent SPSS files
     to other files such as Stata.
     Equally important is to mention that the *.sav and *.por files, may
     contain the same data and that the difference of the *.por files,
     being in the "portability" of the data due to coding system.
     So defend under the guidelines of gnome, keep the same base icon for
     both files *.sav, *.por and *.sps (aided by the metaphor of
     documents). Likewise the same website I mentioned, recommends using
     different colors to represent differences between files of the same
     type.
     Seeking information, design of icons in GNOME, difference icons
     "hicolor" on others that require universal access. Also from my
     professional point of view, as a psychologist, I can assure you that a
     person who suffers from blindness, can distinguish without difficulty
     differential staining of these or other icons, because since being
     diagnosed (mostly since childhood) are trained to adapt its visual
     spectrum, the visual social spectrum.
     
     > I don't understand why there are directories under "scalable" with a 
resolution eg
     > scalable/24x24 - this seems like a contradition to me.
     
     
     →That's easy to explain. What they are sent early developments of the
     artwork. So is somewhat disorganized.
     I also need to mention that I was inspired by the idea of guys from
     LibreOffice to create flat icons based on the current design of GNOME
     symbolic icons, while maintaining the current workflow application.
     From my point of view is the closest thing to what I wanted in PSPP
     and therefore I have created symbolic icons canvas with two sizes
     (16x16 and 24x24).
     
     This has practical and technical reasons:
         -It is easier to transform the canvas to another format (PNG)
         -The make icons on canvas size 24x24, allows more detail to
     enhance readability. On the other hand these icons can be reused to
     create high contrast icons on 48x48 canvas.
         -The icons in vector format works really well in GTK +3, as the
     theme defines the color of the icons and the scaling level. As GTK +2
     know if you can do the same or if there are plans to GTK +3 to PSPP,
     doing work that way allows for a "compatibility mode", but with the
     current design of GNOME 3.
     
     > Whilst I rather like the menu icons in hicolor/scalable/24x24 the 
monochrome look doesn't seem to
     > fit with the "hicolor" theme, which is the default.  Thresholding would 
make them suitable for the
     > high contrast theme.  With a bit of colour added I think they would be 
great for the hicolor
     > theme.
     
     
     → If verification systems using GNOME 3, you will notice that the
     icons are scalable in the same location within the hicolor theme.
     These icons are considered "symbolic" short and medium term and
     replace the icons on the toolbar GNOME applications. Hicolor icons in
     16x16 and 24x24 canvases for applications remain even want them, but
     most applications are not going to use (in GNOME 3 icons in buttons
     and menus are not displayed by default and toolbars of current
     applications using symbolic icons).
     *I do not rule color icons for non-GNOME systems. That would take much
     longer, but prioritized before icons in high contrast.
     
     
     > Some of them are duplicating icons which are already available in Gnome. 
 Eg: Help, Edit-Cut etc.
     > I think it is best to use the system's icons where available.  So we 
only need to do icons for
     > the PSPP specific stuff such as data-weight-cases, transpose-data,  
variable-nominal etc.
     >
     >
     > If these are to be distributed as part of PSPP, there is some legal 
mumbo-jumbo which has
     > to be dealt with.  I think it might be slightly different for artwork 
than with code.  I'm
     > sure Ben will have more to say about this.
     
     →The idea is that the artwork can be distributed with the program and
     maintaining design consistency between systems (Windows, Mac, KDE,
     xfce, etc).
     As mentioned above, the symbolic icons that currently hosts GNOME are
     in vector format and operate at full capacity in GTK +3, and only
     found in GNOME, so I reused the system icons and created two sizes of
     canvas to approve it made in the project to use libreoffice and
     current design icons GNOME 3 in GTK +2 systems.
     As I understand, in order to reuse all or portions of the artwork
     GNOME symbolic icons, give account of the original authors and publish
     modifications under the license pampers (CC Share
     Alike).http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/
     
     
     My arguments are based on the documentation I've read, although
     everything is debatable. Try to contact with a graphic designer GNOME
     project so I can focus a little.
     I do not know if you are familiar with the new designs of GNOME 3, so
     shipping example images.



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