Startup Window - Icon Request

Involved development of the OpenMW construction set.
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Zini
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Startup Window - Icon Request

Post by Zini »

I finally got around to do the startup window:
Screenshot.png
Screenshot.png (10.32 KiB) Viewed 5375 times
Note that the icon in the bottom left is a placeholder and obviously the three big buttons are not supposed to be empty either.


Now we need some icons:

1. Edit (first big button)

Not sure what to use here. Maybe an "open file" type metaphor.

2. / 3. Create New Game / New Addon

We need new icons for our new content file types anyway (.omwgame, .omwaddon). Maybe we could use larger versions of these for the buttons?

4. User preferences (the little icon in the bottom left)

Something cogwheel-ish maybe?
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sirherrbatka
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Re: Startup Window - Icon Request

Post by sirherrbatka »

Maybe an "open file" type metaphor.
This is a standard freedesktop icon (document-open). I have no idea what is the windows situation but It appears that We should use users icon theme. Am I right?
Something cogwheel-ish maybe?
We use cog for activator. Maybe wrench icon or something that looks likes KDE system-settings icon?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_A3bDTdsdVYQ/T ... system.png
2. / 3. Create New Game / New Addon
Visiual metaphor proposal needed.
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lysol
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Re: Startup Window - Icon Request

Post by lysol »

Hey. I'm coming out of nowhere (I lurk here a lot. I mean, a lot) with a suggestion that might work, but there are probably better alternatives.

New game (I'm assuming new master file, in other words a total conversion, or since this is an open engine, a new game?):
A landscape with some trees with the right side of the icon fading out into dotted lines ("- - - - - -") as in "work in progress".

New addon (I'm assuming this is just like how a normal plugin works in Morrowind?):
The same landscape but without any fading. Instead, a new tree and/or a stone or anything is added somewhere, with a lower opacity and dotted lines.

Just one suggestion I came to think of...
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Zini
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Re: Startup Window - Icon Request

Post by Zini »

This is a standard freedesktop icon (document-open). I have no idea what is the windows situation but It appears that We should use users icon theme. Am I right?
That looks like this on my system:
Screenshot.png
Not sure. Doesn't look too great. Also, our concept of opening a file is a bit different from what your average editor does (only loading from data directory, having to specify dependencies). On the other hand the use of standard icons is preferable, where it does make sense. Really not sure, what we should do here.
We use cog for activator. Maybe wrench icon or something that looks likes KDE system-settings icon?
Good idea.
Visiual metaphor proposal needed.
Absolutely. Unfortunately I have none at the moment.
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Zedd
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Re: Startup Window - Icon Request

Post by Zedd »

Create New Game / New Addon
What about a single sheet icon for New Addon and a bundle of sheets for New Game. It's quite default but it I guess that's what we want. We just add something unique to the way the sheet/bundle looks like, something Morrowind style I would say.
To make a difference between the Edit Addon and New Addon we add an extra icon in one of the corners; a scissor icon and a plus icon for example.
I would change the way they are ordered though. New Game -> New Addon -> Edit Addon seems more logical to me.
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Zini
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Re: Startup Window - Icon Request

Post by Zini »

What about a single sheet icon for New Addon and a bundle of sheets for New Game. It's quite default but it I guess that's what we want. We just add something unique to the way the sheet/bundle looks like, something Morrowind style I would say.

The difference between edit and new could be a scissor icon and a plus icon for example.
Interesting idea.
I would change the way they are ordered though. New Game -> New Addon -> Edit Addon seems more logical to me.
I was planning to swap around new game and new addon, so that the buttons are sorted in the order of how commonly they will be used. We could invert the order (which would result in what you proposed), if I set the focus on the right-most icon instead of the left-most on startup. Left to right seems more natural to me though.
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sirherrbatka
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Re: Startup Window - Icon Request

Post by sirherrbatka »

That looks like Humanity icon theme.

Oxygen icon theme, elementary icon theme, tango and I suspect also gnome icon theme uses folder-like metaphor for opening new file. We can go with that I think.

Since it is dependency tree that is being loaded I think We should combain opened folder metaphor with a tree graph (or at least this is some sort of way to go). I made quick and ugly mockup. To demonstrate the idea.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2899105/eskport.png

PS
Don't try to load svg icons into the qt. This does not always works good.
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Zini
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Re: Startup Window - Icon Request

Post by Zini »

Don't like the tree metaphor very much. While this is what we are using internally (before we flatten the whole thing into a list), the average user won't be aware of the tree structure. And even more advanced users will probably think more in terms of content lists (that is even the official name we are using). Therefore this metaphor will not be helpful for most people.
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sirherrbatka
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Re: Startup Window - Icon Request

Post by sirherrbatka »

We could put list graph there instead. But this may be not that clear.
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Zedd
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Re: Startup Window - Icon Request

Post by Zedd »

Zini wrote: I was planning to swap around new game and new addon, so that the buttons are sorted in the order of how commonly they will be used. We could invert the order (which would result in what you proposed), if I set the focus on the right-most icon instead of the left-most on startup. Left to right seems more natural to me though.
I understand the idea of placing the most used icon the closest to the left, but I think that once people get used to clicking the the right-most icon because they use OpenCS a lot, the time spend between going to the right with your cursor or not will be nullified anyway. The thought of placing Edit Addon left-most and New Game right-most just seems structurally wrong to me.

Another metaphor we could use is a transparent cube for addon and a solid cube for a game (again with the scissor and plus sign to make the difference between edit and new). I think a transparent/solid cube would look nice as the extension bound icons. I first thought of multiple transparent cubes forming something for game, but that would make it hard to minimize into a file icon. The idea of using transparent/solid forms can be used for anything though, so once again, we could use something more Morrowind like, although it has to be something simple like a cube of course.
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