Comment 0 for bug 838050

unity 4.10.2-0ubuntu2, Ubuntu Ocelot

The Unity launcher places each application icon on a colored tile. The color is chosen by averaging the colors used in the icon itself. This was an interesting idea, but it doesn't work. If an icon uses mostly one color, and doesn't have cartoon-like borders, the surrounding color washes out the icon and makes it hard to recognize.

The screenshot shows examples of programs where the launcher makes the icon look bad, in order:
* Ubuntu Software Center
* Language Support
* Mozilla Thunderbird
* Universal Access (moot once bug 801784 is fixed)
* Update Manager
* Synaptic
* Me Maker.

Other applications that I was unable to test probably suffer from this problem too:
* Opera
* Skype
* Spotify.

An icon that looks beautiful in the Dash, the messaging or sound menus, Docky, or AWN, and even in Windows or Mac OS X, can easily look terrible in the Unity launcher. Therefore, the problem is with the launcher, not with the icons.

Some of the ways in which this could be fixed:
* Remove the background color from the Launcher icons altogether.
* Make the background color much darker, or much lighter, than the average icon color.
* Apply a shadow to the icons. (This would conflict with any shadow the icon already has, such as in Firefox.)