Breeze icons changing appearance drastically. Just no. Please. I test-drived latest Neon5 again, and whenever that happens, it really makes me lose it. It really should be fixed as soon as possible before releasing Plasma. I created elaborate picture to point out why it is wrong. It is just so confusing and vexing behaviour, changing like that all the suddenly. The more it happens the more it gets on my nerves. I really like design of both colorful Breeze icons and the monochrome ones, but it should be one of those in any given situation for sake of consistency, not both. I like how they are different in Dolphin places-bar than in actual navigation area (similar to Nautilus), but when they become similar all of the sudden in navigation area too, it is unnerving.

Look here for visual explanation: http://a.pomf.se/qmwgym.jpg

daedaluz wrote:Breeze icons changing appearance drastically. Just no. Please. I test-drived latest Neon5 again, and whenever that happens, it really makes me lose it. It really should be fixed as soon as possible before releasing Plasma. I created elaborate picture to point out why it is wrong. It is just so confusing and vexing behaviour, changing like that all the suddenly. The more it happens the more it gets on my nerves. I really like design of both colorful Breeze icons and the monochrome ones, but it should be one of those in any given situation for sake of consistency, not both. I like how they are different in Dolphin places-bar than in actual navigation area (similar to Nautilus), but when they become similar all of the sudden in navigation area too, it is unnerving.

Look here for visual explanation: http://a.pomf.se/qmwgym.jpg

I had thought those monochrome icons were only placeholders until they could get updated, if those are indeed final icons they need to be changed IMMEDIATELY.

joaob wrote:I had thought those monochrome icons were only placeholders until they could get updated, if those are indeed final icons they need to be changed IMMEDIATELY.

Why do you feel they need to be changed?

colomar wrote:Why do you feel they need to be changed?

It makes absolutely no sense the icons should change considerably when they are small in size. As daedaluz pointed out, the lack of consistency is really annoying, it's also confusing for the user and above all it makes the workspace fell really ugly.
Here is a comparison between my Dolphin set up in KDE 4 and a similar set up in Plasma 5:
KDE 4: http://i.imgur.com/ZhDawmJ.png
Plasma 5: http://i.imgur.com/7bmJdpp.png

Why should the smaller icons be different in Plasma 5? It make no sense at all, it looks like they don't belong, like that there's something wrong with the icons (like the textures are missing).
The smaller icons should be replaced with smaller versions of the proper icons.

As a side note, I have no problems with the monochrome action button icons and they don't feel out of place.

I agree that the small application icons should change. They almost break the icon task manger because the whole idea of only having icons is that you will recognise which icon goes with which application, but the breeze theme has two, the monochrome icon being hard to see and distinguish what it is. Further more, they are completely invisible in the dark breeze theme.

enoop wrote:I agree that the small application icons should change. They almost break the icon task manger because the whole idea of only having icons is that you will recognise which icon goes with which application, but the breeze theme has two, the monochrome icon being hard to see and distinguish what it is. Further more, they are completely invisible in the dark breeze theme.

I thought the icons in the task manager were a bug. At least not all applications with icons in Breeze have a monochrome icon in the task manager for me like e.g. Konsole.

My biggest problem is with the application icons. If they are bugged then I don't have much of a problem with using different icons at different sizes.

I totally agree that the icons really should be the same style at all the different sizes - maybe with small tweaks to make them work at those sizes if needed, nothing more.

As enoop said:

the whole idea of only having icons is that you will recognise which icon goes with which application

Exactly my thoughts, is there any reason at all to have different icons that appear in different situations??

ken300 wrote:Exactly my thoughts, is there any reason at all to have different icons that appear in different situations??

My thoughts as well, Plasma 5.0 is scheduled to be released today and it shouldn't with the way icons currently are.

Sogatori wrote:

enoop wrote:I agree that the small application icons should change. They almost break the icon task manger because the whole idea of only having icons is that you will recognise which icon goes with which application, but the breeze theme has two, the monochrome icon being hard to see and distinguish what it is. Further more, they are completely invisible in the dark breeze theme.

I thought the icons in the task manager were a bug. At least not all applications with icons in Breeze have a monochrome icon in the task manager for me like e.g. Konsole.

Which makes it even worse because it is not consistent behaviour, like I pointed out here. Sometimes icons change, sometimes they don't.

daedaluz wrote:Breeze icons changing appearance drastically. Just no. Please. I test-drived latest Neon5 again, and whenever that happens, it really makes me lose it. It really should be fixed as soon as possible before releasing Plasma. I created elaborate picture to point out why it is wrong. It is just so confusing and vexing behaviour, changing like that all the suddenly. The more it happens the more it gets on my nerves. I really like design of both colorful Breeze icons and the monochrome ones, but it should be one of those in any given situation for sake of consistency, not both. I like how they are different in Dolphin places-bar than in actual navigation area (similar to Nautilus), but when they become similar all of the sudden in navigation area too, it is unnerving.

Look here for visual explanation: http://a.pomf.se/qmwgym.jpg

Alright, so let's start with: The icon theme, and I think this is pretty obvious, The theme. Is not. Complete. As I have already pointed out in the sticky thread on the forum, monochrome icons are for the toolbars and that is why most of them are in the folder /actions, now, on to the topic, application icons such as the Dolphin icon are monochrome because the icon used for the toolbar action for "About Dolphin" requests the icon for Dolphin to be at that size, and, as it turns out that button (About Dolphin) goes in the toolbar. What is the fix there?, again, as I mentioned in the sticky thread, the workaround that I made was to add a monochrome 22px version of the Dolphin icon specifically for that action, why?, because applications icons shouldn't be used in toolbars, which is exactly the problem that I outline in Muon Discover in the sticky thread. And the same goes for the "Terminal" button in Dolphin's toolbar which the desktop uses for the smaller size for Konsole in the task manager.

With that said, I repeat: the theme is not complete. And stuff that previously used application icons and that is used in the toolbars must be modified to not use application icons in the toolbar, because icons for the toolbars are monochrome.

Now, the folders, the same thing, the idea here is to have tiny 16px icons for use in software sidebars, why? you ask, because Dolphin, Kate, Ark, look gorgeous, fitting, modern, with them. And software like Okular looks absolutely terrible with those, huge, non monochrome icons in its sidebar. So again, like in the toolbars, either software makes use of two separate icons: one for the general view of the software for example in Dolphin, the icon view of folders, and, another for the sidebar, or, that exactly is going to keep happening. And it happens, because it has been a long tradition to not use icons correctly.

So yes, this is expected to happen until it's not more complete, and until software is changed to use icons differently.

joaob wrote:I had thought those monochrome icons were only placeholders until they could get updated, if those are indeed final icons they need to be changed IMMEDIATELY.

No, they are not placeholders.

Colorful icons are used in: Docks, kickoff, lancelot, notifications in plasma, system settings, homerun, homerun kicker, and so on. Everywhere else where icons are big.
Monochrome icons are used in: toolbars, sidebars and contextual menus. Nowhere else.

joaob wrote:
It makes absolutely no sense the icons should change considerably when they are small in size. As daedaluz pointed out, the lack of consistency is really annoying, it's also confusing for the user and above all it makes the workspace fell really ugly.
Here is a comparison between my Dolphin set up in KDE 4 and a similar set up in Plasma 5:
KDE 4: http://i.imgur.com/ZhDawmJ.png
Plasma 5: http://i.imgur.com/7bmJdpp.png

Why should the smaller icons be different in Plasma 5? It make no sense at all, it looks like they don't belong, like that there's something wrong with the icons (like the textures are missing).
The smaller icons should be replaced with smaller versions of the proper icons.

As a side note, I have no problems with the monochrome action button icons and they don't feel out of place.

Same thing, it's not a complete theme. this is the sort of stuff that happens when you use a theme that is not complete. You get icons where they don't belong.

Hope that clears your concerns.

So, chill peeps, when the theme is done and software is modified to what it should be the correct usage of the new iconography it will look good.

Okay, so for me the take-away is: It should be included in release communication that icons looking out of place are an artifact of the transition in iconography (partly due to the incomplete icon set, partly due to applications still using icons in the wrong places), not "by design", and that they will get sorted out over time.

colomar wrote:Okay, so for me the take-away is: It should be included in release communication that icons looking out of place are an artifact of the transition in iconography (partly due to the incomplete icon set, partly due to applications still using icons in the wrong places), not "by design", and that they will get sorted out over time.

This ^^^

Thumbs up to what Uri and colomar said.

Additionally, everyone should understand that we can work together to get the icon theme more and more complete over time. Also know that it will take time and effort to accomplish our objectives together as a group. Patience, understanding and a helpful spirit is IMHO the only way we get there.

Uri_Herrera wrote:Alright, so let's start with: The icon theme, and I think this is pretty obvious, The theme. Is not. Complete. As I have already pointed out in the sticky thread on the forum, monochrome icons are for the toolbars and that is why most of them are in the folder /actions

Hope that clears your concerns.

So, chill peeps, when the theme is done and software is modified to what it should be the correct usage of the new iconography it will look good.

Thanks for clearing that up! No, it wasn't obvious, seeing how Plasma 5.0 is already released (and sticky doesn't mention icon set is still work in progress). I was afraid the things I pointed out were overlooked blunders or even worse, intentional design decisions!