document-save issues

[Michael Terry]

1) document-save is only provided in the small 24x24 icon. I'd like to see bigger versions.

2) document-save does not follow the recommended metaphor per the icon naming specification [1]. It "should be an arrow pointing down and toward a hard disk."

3) No document-send is provided. In combination with (2) above, this is bad, as document-send is the direct analog to document-save. Much like you should always provide a bgcolor in HTML if you override the font color, overriding only half of the metaphor is bad news. The fact that they are complementary metaphors makes the spec's recommendation that much more compelling -- up and down arrows are easy opposites to convey.

[1] http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html

[Kenneth Wimer (kwwii)]

The icon naming specification has nothing to do with the metaphors used in icon themes, only the naming.

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

The naming spec certainly does deal with the metaphors for some icon names. For example, for "pda" it says, "The metaphor for this fallback icon should be a generic PDA device icon." Providing application authors a known-metaphor is not an invalid function of the spec.

Whether you want to selectively ignore parts of the spec for a particular goal of your theme is certainly an option. But I don't think that instantly makes this bug Invalid. I'm re-opening because this bug was about more than blind "icon doesn't follow spec" spec-worshipping.

There were three issues I presented in the description:
1) document-save is only provided in the small 24x24 icon. I'd like to see bigger versions.
2) document-save does not follow the recommended metaphor.
3) No document-send is provided. In combination with (2) above, this is bad, as document-send is the direct analog to document-save. Much like you should always provide a bgcolor in HTML if you override the font color, overriding only half of the metaphor is bad news. The fact that they are complementary metaphors makes the spec's recommendation that much more compelling -- up and down arrows are easy opposites to convey.

I could have stated the above issues more clearly originally. Possibly they should be 3 separate bugs, but the last two are closely related.

Also, I stated in the original description that that the Human theme didn't provide a document-save-as, but that was incorrect (it shows as the same floppy as document-save but with a little pen on it).

[Kenneth Wimer (kwwii)]

Ok, I can see some of your points but need a bit more information...

1) You mention document-save being only at 24x24 pixels. Which app needs this at larger sizes? Is this a problem for the default setup or is this to cover things people change on their own?

2) As for the recommended metaphor I simply disagree with the fact that a naming spec would dictate metaphors. Not sure when that stuff was added or I would have complained.

3) You mention document-send not being included. Which app needs this icon?

I can see the point of unifying metaphors to make things easier to understand but again, I disagree with any "naming" spec to define artwork/design issues.

This comment may sound a little negative but it was not meant to be. Manpower is limited so it is important for us to know which issues to work on first.

[Michael Terry (mterry)]

My POV is from an application author that was playing around with a simple backup UI. I wanted to present large 'Restore' and 'Backup' buttons with icons, and the metaphor of the document-save and document-send in the spec was perfect for them. I also considered using document-send as the application icon. Thus the larger size request and the metaphor request.

Given the state of document-save and document-send in current themes, I was just going to use non-themed icons for the moment. But I had hoped that I could get the issues preventing me from using the themed versions fixed in the themes themselves.

So no important apps expect the icons to be as the spec says yet, but that's always a chicken-and-egg situation, no? But it's not urgent for me, nor anyone else, I assume.

But this is why it could be convenient for me as an author to be able to rely on a metaphor. Another solution would be for the naming spec to have specific backup/restore icons, and I wouldn't have to. But I didn't think such a fix would be needed as long as theme authors were willing to follow the existing spec.