A question about Breeze's icons. I understand closing, exiting, removing is coded as red. So actions/toolbar/application-exit.svg is red:


Then is this consistent that we have these not red?

actions/toolbar/system-shutdown.svg:


actions/toolbar/system-logout.svg:


I am not sure about other actions such as reboot or suspend, but they also seem similarly critical like the shutdown one.

Certainly +1 from me for having the shutdown button as red. Not sure about the logout one though.

davidwright wrote:Certainly +1 from me for having the shutdown button as red. Not sure about the logout one though.

I would vote to have the logout button red, as it could result in the closing of applications, and certainly the closing of services.

Good eye!

I'm not sure it is necessary to have the shutdown or logout icons red. While they are potentially destructive actions, they're not necessarily destructive. The actions associated with both icons employ the most deliberate confirmation pattern in the entire desktop workspace. The interaction "distance" between a selecting shutdown or logout and actually losing data is quite large. I do not think that either of these icons should be changed to red.

alake wrote:I'm not sure it is necessary to have the shutdown or logout icons red. While they are potentially destructive actions, they're not necessarily destructive. The actions associated with both icons employ the most deliberate confirmation pattern in the entire desktop workspace. The interaction "distance" between a selecting shutdown or logout and actually losing data is quite large. I do not think that either of these icons should be changed to red.

On the other hand, applications usually ask for confirmation if closing them may result int he loss of data, too...

Kver wrote:

davidwright wrote:Certainly +1 from me for having the shutdown button as red. Not sure about the logout one though.

I would vote to have the logout button red, as it could result in the closing of applications, and certainly the closing of services.

Good eye!

My reasoning for having only the shutdown one as red was mainly just to differentiate it from the others. 9/10 times if you're looking at those three buttons you're aiming for a shutdown (from my usage anyway!).

colomar wrote:On the other hand, applications usually ask for confirmation if closing them may result int the loss of data, too...

This is even signalled to the WM (the asterisk thing), and it would be possible to use different icons for such client state, ....
... but try that with your long running foreground job in konsole

Also closing a window is "destructive" in any case (window gone) - even if it just exits video playback.

I feel "near" Andrew here: "Should be red if it is *likely* destructive."
So not if you're first invoking a "sure?" dialog for sure, but should be if you eg. bound the icon to "logout 0 * 2" (<- that mean's "bye", no questions being asked)

alake wrote:I'm not sure it is necessary to have the shutdown or logout icons red. While they are potentially destructive actions, they're not necessarily destructive. The actions associated with both icons employ the most deliberate confirmation pattern in the entire desktop workspace. The interaction "distance" between a selecting shutdown or logout and actually losing data is quite large. I do not think that either of these icons should be changed to red.

I like your explanation, Andrew.

OTOH

1. There are always "gray" areas. For example if you open app that supports edit->delete action, like Qt Designer, the action is in red.

But it's not only non-destructive for 30 seconds (like the shutdown). It's non-destructive until I press save. I can always press undo.

2. Another example why consistency would lead to insanity: edit->cut is basically a copy+delete. So it contains destructive 'delete'. But it is not indicated by a red icon.

And so on...

PS: I understand that the shutdown icon may be present on the panel by default and it'd be the only red piece there. That's not too nice but then the red could be turned off at the theme level (is colorizing supported at this level by Plasma?).

colomar wrote:

alake wrote:I'm not sure it is necessary to have the shutdown or logout icons red. While they are potentially destructive actions, they're not necessarily destructive. The actions associated with both icons employ the most deliberate confirmation pattern in the entire desktop workspace. The interaction "distance" between a selecting shutdown or logout and actually losing data is quite large. I do not think that either of these icons should be changed to red.

On the other hand, applications usually ask for confirmation if closing them may result int he loss of data, too...

True, but in applications it where a confirmation occurs it is usually just one step removed from data loss. In the case of shutdown/logout you're usually more than a step removed from application data loss since the application usually also asks for confirmation as well. Moreover, when I mentioned that the shudown dialog is the most deliberate confirmation pattern in the desktop workspace, I meant that it does far more than any other confirmation dialog before data loss can occur. It is system-modal, takes over the entire screen and uses a 30 second delay before taking the action requested. There is very little ambiguity about the action being performed.

I think the visual downsides might not be worth it in this case. There are certainly some grey areas for interpretation, but it's a touch difficult for me to imagine the essential net positive of changing these icons to red. My inclination, when in doubt, would be to err on the side of using red very sparingly, since it's such an attention-grabbing color in baseline monochrome icons. I do think it's a fair question to ask though.

I have to admit, in this case I failed to abstract from my own situation to the general one: I always have my system configured to shut down without confirmation, so in my case, it does carry out a potentially destructive function immediately. And I forgot for a moment there that this is not the default.

So maybe Thomas L. could have a point there?

luebking wrote:So not if you're first invoking a "sure?" dialog for sure, but should be if you eg. bound the icon to "logout 0 * 2" (<- that mean's "bye", no questions being asked)