Breeze is a pleasant icon theme and i like the simplified style. However, in some aspects, this simplification is breaking usability in the most basic function of an icon theme: differentiate in one sight the type of the displayed files.
For example, take a quick look on this image to try to determine the number of compressed and the image files.

It's not an easy task. And this is plain wrong from a usability point of view.
In this theme icons are simplified, but in this case the problem is the wrong use of color, as a powerful grouping hint to the user.
So, in my opinion, this can be fixed in two ways:

1. Using the color to differentiate groups: use the actual icons and tweak the colors to differentiate the file types. In this case the color are the primary hint and the form is the secondary hint.
2. Using the forms to differentiate the groups: add more differentiation to the icon in regards of his file type, and only use the color to add some detail when necessary. In this case the form are the primary hint and the color is the secondary hint.

The color combinations are applied to each mimetype group; compressed files, text documents, images and so on. There's currently 29 combinations to choose from. Obviously this means that the combinations may be repeated like in your (I must say) very specific screenshot.

Your 1st suggestion means doing over 334 (three hundred and thirty four) color combinations. We've got 29 so that's another 305 combinations. It also means removing the files that are linked so that each file is a separate, individual file and can have its own color combination.

Mimetype icons are file icons, each and every one of them. Your 2nd suggestion means redoing every one that is not a file or that is not associated with a "file" concept like a compressed file or a database file.

I can see what you mean, however, I highly doubt that with the information already provided by Dolphin in the status area, the file extension, the preview sidepane and the icon itself (sure they're green, but they very clearly each have their own symbol) information that you've omitted, a user will panic because he/she can't distinguish one file from the other.

That's perhaps a matter of perspective.
If you're a compression expert and all day watch dirs which only contain differently compressed files, having different color keys for different compression formats will be desired, but Joe User (and I bet: "neither you") could not explain the technical difference between gz, bz2, xz or arc if his life depended on it.
The more geeky ones will know the relations between tar and compression and maybe why zip is both, but that's it.

Also, the color grouping seems pretty random to me?
Eg. why do ac3 (a codec, used for A/52 ie. DolbyDigital™), aiff (a container - Apples pendant to MS riff/wave, both keep PCM) and monkey (APE, lossless codec + container, similar to flac+ogg) share the same color, but flac and flac+ogg (ogg is the container, flac the codec) do not (neither to APE, nor among each other)

However, no user (beyond an audio specialist) cares about whether that's an mp3 or ogg/vorbis - main point is: "you click it and it makes music/sound/noise". That's different from: "you click it and can see a cat in a cup".

The icons have the same shape and monochromatic glyphs - the color is really the significant distinction.
So I agree w/ the OP that it should be used to group types of mime and detail information about the actual data structure should -if provided in the icon at all- be a minor detail (and possibly more explicit, ie. repeat the expectable suffix or similar)

luebking wrote:That's perhaps a matter of perspective.
If you're a compression expert and all day watch dirs which only contain differently compressed files, having different color keys for different compression formats will be desired, but Joe User (and I bet: "neither you") could not explain the technical difference between gz, bz2, xz or arc if his life depended on it.
The more geeky ones will know the relations between tar and compression and maybe why zip is both, but that's it.

Also, the color grouping seems pretty random to me?
Eg. why do ac3 (a codec, used for A/52 ie. DolbyDigital™), aiff (a container - Apples pendant to MS riff/wave, both keep PCM) and monkey (APE, lossless codec + container, similar to flac+ogg) share the same color, but flac and flac+ogg (ogg is the container, flac the codec) do not (neither to APE, nor among each other)

However, no user (beyond an audio specialist) cares about whether that's an mp3 or ogg/vorbis - main point is: "you click it and it makes music/sound/noise". That's different from: "you click it and can see a cat in a cup".

The icons have the same shape and monochromatic glyphs - the color is really the significant distinction.
So I agree w/ the OP that it should be used to group types of mime and detail information about the actual data structure should -if provided in the icon at all- be a minor detail (and possibly more explicit, ie. repeat the expectable suffix or similar)

If they share the same color within the same mimetype group they are links, to which I said that then we have to remove the links (all of them for that matter) and make individual files. Then they can have their own color. And also make other 300+ combinations for each new individual file.

For the latter I have no intention to make a box that has a huge zip on it nor a literal CD nor a literal film cut out for video files nor a CD with a musical note etc. they are not application icons they are icons for files and they should look like files. If someone wants to see rather differential icons for the mimetypes then they can make them, following the same style so that they don't look that different from the main theme. Oh and neither will I add a text label on them. I've tried it before and I hated it afterwards.

I suggested to NOT have (apparently purely random anyway) different colors for eg. mp3, ogg/vorbis and ogg/flac but to use different colors to distinguish between sound & image etc.

luebking wrote:I suggested to NOT have (apparently purely random anyway) different colors for eg. mp3, ogg/vorbis and ogg/flac but to use different colors to distinguish between sound & image etc.

i.e. all music files blue, all image files pink?. That seems worse to me.

Uri_Herrera wrote:

luebking wrote:I suggested to NOT have (apparently purely random anyway) different colors for eg. mp3, ogg/vorbis and ogg/flac but to use different colors to distinguish between sound & image etc.

i.e. all music files blue, all image files pink?. That seems worse to me.

for me to. for example my camera make raw and jpg files. I want to see where are the jpg to show and raw to edit.

I used it now since the beginning and the mime type icons are one of the best icons cause you habe color and an different icon. maybe for a download folder where you habe nearly all file types it was difficult for tuning there is space.

Uri_Herrera wrote:i.e. all music files blue, all image files pink?. That seems worse to me.

right now, you get a random color mess - green images, soundfiles and archives, blue soundfiles and grey soundfiles on at least no technically backed clustering.

i'd btw. consider raw, jpg and xcf to be different kind of data from a usage POV (while psd is like xcf, png & bmp are "near" jpeg. tiff is a matter of it's own, being a "supercontainer" - but rather xcf than png)

luebking wrote:

Uri_Herrera wrote:i.e. all music files blue, all image files pink?. That seems worse to me.

right now, you get a random color mess - green images, soundfiles and archives, blue soundfiles and grey soundfiles on at least no technically backed clustering.

i'd btw. consider raw, jpg and xcf to be different kind of data from a usage POV (while psd is like xcf, png & bmp are "near" jpeg. tiff is a matter of it's own, being a "supercontainer" - but rather xcf than png)

Well the "random color mess" it's there to exactly prevent users from confusing each mimetype. If all the mimetypes i.e. images were the same color it'd only make it harder for a user to tell them apart even with the information that Dolphin provides.

The "random color mess" is also taken from associated colors used by the applications that will open them: Presentation files are orange, spreadsheets are green, text documents are different shades of blue, simpler text documents are gray, databases are purple, PDF documents are red, flash files are also red, RSS XML files are orange and so on... others that don't have a specific color are assigned one.

Well the "random color mess" it's there to exactly prevent users from confusing each mimetype.

I think you missed my very first point: "matter of perspective" - maybe should have said "matter of context"

If you *only* deal with images of different kind, you obviously want to be able to separate those.
But in a folder with mixed content, you likely rather want to look out for "an image" or "a music tune" or "a video" and don't care the least about the data structure.

The "random color mess" is also taken from associated colors used by the applications that will open them

Even if one would not inevitably run into conflicts by that approach, because application icons rarely have exclusive colors except inside a suite and assuming everyone will use the same applications as you do (apparently MS Office) to open that data:

Why is xcf purple?
Wilbur is usually bronze, rarely orange. Krita is black and pink (like "pink", not "purple")
And why do you think jpegs will be opened in different applications than pngs - or xcf's?
Why will I open a psd in another application than xcf's??

luebking wrote: If you *only* deal with images of different kind, you obviously want to be able to separate those.
But in a folder with mixed content, you likely rather want to look out for "an image" or "a music tune" or "a video" and don't care the least about the data structure.

If I had a folder with mixed content I specially would like to tell each file apart. That on the very odd chance that I had files that use the same color I think my sight isn't so bad that I couldn't distinguish shapes in the icons and would mistakenly click a ZIP when I intended to open an SVG both being green or a FLAC file and a Bash script both being dark gray.

I have evidently folders with lots of SVG images, I know that there are only SVG images there, but maybe there's an SVGZ file or an AI file that sneaked in there. If all vector images icons were the same color I could not quickly tell them apart since they share the same symbol.

Maybe i'm just aware of what I'm doing and what I'm looking for. But never has it happened to me with Breeze or with any other icon theme by myself or by somebody else that I've confused one file with another because of the icon. Folders sure but files never.

luebking wrote:Even if one would not inevitably run into conflicts by that approach, because application icons rarely have exclusive colors except inside a suite and assuming everyone will use the same applications as you do (apparently MS Office) to open that data:

I use Google Drive and very rarely WPS Office which if you hadn't noticed both use those colors (blue, green and orange) for their main components and so does every other office suite I've ever tried and/or used. Let's not go that far, LibreOffice uses the same color scheme even if not as pretty. Surely all inspired from Microsoft's offering. Others that don't have that color connection like I said were assigned a color.

luebking wrote: Why is xcf purple? Wilbur is usually bronze, rarely orange.

Purely historical reasons of mine, the original Nitrux icon for GIMP was purple. I also never was too fond of the mascot.

luebking wrote: Krita is black and pink (like "pink", not "purple")

The Krita mimetype image-x-krita looks pretty pink to me.



Their logo also looks more pinkish. Even if it's not the same shade.

luebking wrote: And why do you think jpegs will be opened in different applications than pngs - or xcf's?

... others that don't have a specific color are assigned one.

luebking wrote: Why will I open a psd in another application than xcf's??

The Photoshop logo is blue thus the mimetype is blue.

Hello,

I think there is room for improvement here. Let me first describe the problems I run into when using the Breeze icons in Dolphin. I'll then do a quick comparison of Breeze and themes that don't cause these issues (mainly Oxygen, but also Adwaita and Canonical's Humanity). What I'm trying to do is describing the problems I think Breeze has, and finding how other themes do better (not to say they look better : they don't). I'm trying to remain constructive.

The main problem is the differentiation of file types. When looking for, say, an png file, I tend to quickly scan the screen to find images. Then only I look at the format. (Well, I'm doing both steps at once, but I think that's how my brain works.) The file type is (much) harder to see than the colour. I need to have a (relatively) close look at each icon just to see what kind of file it is (except for PDF files, which have their own colour).
There are also all these colours. I'm not against using them to distinguish between formats : this works very well for .h/.cpp, for example. But I think they get in the way more than they help. They are distracting when scanning for a specific content type, which is what I do the most. The association between mimetypes and colours is very difficult to learn, hence the "nonsense" reported above.
Lastly, I'm running into a more specific issue when using coloured folders to highlight commonly used places (and with the Desktop icon). They look like files (because of their colour) and break the "folder block" at the top of Dolphin's window.

So what's the difference between Breeze and other icons themes ? The relative importance of the various aspects of a file are not the same. Let's take Oxygen as an example :

1. The first thing one sees is a clear distinction between files and folders. Folders stand out with lots of saturated colours. Most file types use a white leaf with only some coloured elements.
2. Then there is a clear distinction between graphics, archives, text files, ... They all use very distinct graphics, while remaining less saturated than folders.
3. Lastly, there are small variations of the same icon to distinguish formats : see the difference between .mp3 and .wav, for example.

Here is the same list for Breeze :

1. Colours, mapped to formats
2. Shape, to distinguish between files and folders (both shapes are very squarish, so the colour stands out better)
3. The small shape on the leaf, telling the file type

Breeze's small icon set (at 22px) is closer to other icon sets : the strong shapes stand out much more than the colour. Wouldn't these icons be so small (close to the size of the text), I would consider using them instead of the big ones.

This is the end of the strictly on-topic part of my post. What follows is a set of more philosophical questions (not unrelated to Breeze's decision to give the same outer shape to all files).

• What's the conceptual difference between a ZIP file and a folder ?
• What's the relation between a movie and a leaf ?
• Most photographs are taken in landscape mode. Why is the graphics portrait-oriented ?

Louis

louis94 wrote: The main problem is the differentiation of file types. When looking for, say, an png file, I tend to quickly scan the screen to find images. Then only I look at the format. (Well, I'm doing both steps at once, but I think that's how my brain works.)

If you are using the preview mode you will not glance at the icon at all.

louis94 wrote: The file type is (much) harder to see than the colour. I need to have a (relatively) close look at each icon just to see what kind of file it is (except for PDF files, which have their own colour).

If by: "The file type is (much) harder to see than the colour." you mean the symbol in the icon I don't know if anyone has realized that the icons are at 64px - they are meant to be viewed at a rather medium to large size in the icon view mode. If you view them in a size that's smaller they will get scaled and detail will be lost. That of course means that if the symbol which uses 1px lines is scaled down it will not fill the 1 pixel it's supposed to be using. Obviously (and I mean obviously since we're talking icons) one size doesn't fit all, there should be smaller sizes like 32 or 48, yes of course.

louis94 wrote: There are also all these colours. I'm not against using them to distinguish between formats : this works very well for .h/.cpp, for example. But I think they get in the way more than they help. They are distracting when scanning for a specific content type, which is what I do the most. The association between mimetypes and colours is very difficult to learn, hence the "nonsense" reported above.

I quite frankly don't/can't understand how it is distracting or difficult to learn/associate colors with shapes.

louis94 wrote: Lastly, I'm running into a more specific issue when using coloured folders to highlight commonly used places (and with the Desktop icon). They look like files (because of their colour) and break the "folder block" at the top of Dolphin's window.

There isn't a 16px desktop icon in Breeze; I don't know how they look like files? a screenshot maybe; I don't know what do you mean with "folder block".

louis94 wrote: So what's the difference between Breeze and other icons themes ? The relative importance of the various aspects of a file are not the same. Let's take Oxygen as an example :

1. The first thing one sees is a clear distinction between files and folders. Folders stand out with lots of saturated colours. Most file types use a white leaf with only some coloured elements.
2. Then there is a clear distinction between graphics, archives, text files, ... They all use very distinct graphics, while remaining less saturated than folders.
3. Lastly, there are small variations of the same icon to distinguish formats : see the difference between .mp3 and .wav, for example.

Like I said above (let me emphasize it): I have no intention, zero, of doing mimetypes that look like application icons or preferences icons. They are files and they should look like files. I very specifically did not do them like that because they were being used as such which as I pointed out in the icons wiki it is not right. If somebody wants to have CDs/DVDs for the optical media mimetype or boxes/sheets with huge zips on them for ZIPs, TARs, etc. Then that somebody can go ahead and make the icons or use an icon theme that uses icons like those. If I wanted to simply flatten Oxygen or make a theme based on it I would have done so.

louis94 wrote:
Here is the same list for Breeze :

1. Colours, mapped to formats
2. Shape, to distinguish between files and folders (both shapes are very squarish, so the colour stands out better)
3. The small shape on the leaf, telling the file type

Breeze's small icon set (at 22px) is closer to other icon sets : the strong shapes stand out much more than the colour. Wouldn't these icons be so small (close to the size of the text), I would consider using them instead of the big ones.

1- Colors are mapped to formats. But no, there aren't 334 color combinations either, because well.. they are not flat so it's not a single color that would need to be changed. And like I have said before as well some are links.
2- They are files not application icons.
3. They are sheets with a symbol on them telling the file type..?. If you meant text labels, no. I will never use text labels on an icon theme again.

The 22px icons are for actions and actions only (and status). So no.

louis94 wrote:This is the end of the strictly on-topic part of my post. What follows is a set of more philosophical questions (not unrelated to Breeze's decision to give the same outer shape to all files).

• What's the conceptual difference between a ZIP file and a folder ?
• What's the relation between a movie and a leaf ?
• Most photographs are taken in landscape mode. Why is the graphics portrait-oriented ?

Louis

1- Well that exactly... one is a file, a compressed file, the other is a folder. A folder is not a file and a compressed file is also not a folder.
2- I think you mean sheet as in a paper sheet. None, but like I said several times now, they are files. It also has a film cut out.. just fyi.
3- Polaroid pictures. That's also the grid area used for all the mimetypes.

So... If I understand this correctly (and I might have misinterpreted);

The issue at hand is that there's essentially two things that need to be identified with the file icons;

• The file type (audio, video, archive, animal, vegitable, mineral)
• The file format (ogg, wav, mp3 - as audio examples)

The trouble is that the format is colour coded, and the type has a glyph; but it can be hard to identify based on glyph quickly.

If my understanding is correct, why don't we give >16px icons secondary colours which can be applied to the folded corner (implying the 'back' of the sheets are the other colour)? E.g. archives may have blue corners, music may have red corners, graphics might have yellow corners, etc. Possibly using charcoal colour coding in the corners for 'generic' or uncommon types.

Sample:

But then what about the back color? and the symbol? wouldn't that mean that then the same color would have to be used for all the mimes. And then we will have folks saying "OMG they all look the same, I can't tell them apart just from that little corner it sux1!1!!".

Also (obviously) they need to be colors that match.