Hi everyone!

First of all, in case you don't know KDE Connect already, it is an Android app to integrate your smartphone with the Plasma desktop: you can use it to transfer files without wires, to read your phone notifications from your desktop, to copy and paste between devices (clipboard sharing) or to use your phone as a remote control for a media player in your computer. Among other cool things :)

Right now we are porting KDE Connect to Plasma 5 and I found that some of the icons that worked in KDE4, don't work very well with the new Plasma 5 style, so I'm asking for your help here in the VDG :D

Let me attach a screenshot of the System Settings module so you can see how the icons look like right now:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8820360/screenshots/kcm5.png

The bar in the left shows the devices connected. Every device can be in one of these three status:

- Device present in the network but not trusted (not paired).
- Device present in the network and paired.
- Device previously paired but not present in the network at this moment.

In KDE4 we used the same icons for this states as for people in the instant messaging apps, because there were simply red, green and gray markers. But in Plasma 5 they now have a person on them, so it looks weird because we are talking about devices (usually smartphones, but it can also be another computer, a tablet...) and not people here :/

Second, the panel on the right shows the list of available "plugins" or features. These icons are also recycled from other places... In KDE4, the mix and match looked okay-ish, but since in Plasma 5 the "action" icons have a different style than other icons, they seem a bit out of place and we might need to replace them (or maybe not?).

Finally, the "system tray" icon:



This one was already ported to the new style, but a user reported that it looks like a clipboard more than a mobile phone, and I kind of agree :P Since we also have Klipper in the tray it can be a bit confusing, so maybe we can change it a little bit. I don't know how to make it more intuitive though, any ideas?

And this is all for now. Another day I also have in my TODO list to ask you guys for a new design for the Android app (it needs one), but right now I don't have time to work on that, so let's see what we can do with the icons for now :)

Thanks for your help!
Albert

for the system tray there is a smartphone icon in the icon set

https://github.com/NitruxSA/plasma-next ... tphone.svg

which size has the system tray icon (16x16)?

is there maybe a place where I can see some of the application screenshots? I don't have an Android phone but can I test the app as it is right now on KDE? If so, I can look into the icons along with the rest of the team.

anditosan wrote:is there maybe a place where I can see some of the application screenshots? I don't have an Android phone but can I test the app as it is right now on KDE? If so, I can look into the icons along with the rest of the team.

In my original post there is a link to a screenshot with the System Settings window. I don't have enough time to work on the Android app now (it's a major project on itself), so I first want to make changes to the desktop part (that System Settings module I just mentioned).

Sadly, there is no way for you to try this on your computer without an Android phone :/

elvaka wrote:Hi everyone!
First of all, in case you don't know KDE Connect already, it is an Android app to integrate your smartphone with the Plasma desktop: you can use it to transfer files without wires, to read your phone notifications from your desktop, to copy and paste between devices (clipboard sharing) or to use your phone as a remote control for a media player in your computer. Among other cool things

Right now we are porting KDE Connect to Plasma 5 and I found that some of the icons that worked in KDE4, don't work very well with the new Plasma 5 style, so I'm asking for your help here in the VDG

Let me attach a screenshot of the System Settings module so you can see how the icons look like right now:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8820360/screenshots/kcm5.png

The bar in the left shows the devices connected. Every device can be in one of these three status:

- Device present in the network but not trusted (not paired).
- Device present in the network and paired.
- Device previously paired but not present in the network at this moment.

In KDE4 we used the same icons for this states as for people in the instant messaging apps, because there were simply red, green and gray markers. But in Plasma 5 they now have a person on them, so it looks weird because we are talking about devices (usually smartphones, but it can also be another computer, a tablet...) and not people here :/

Yes since they are used for IM apps. While there's a device icon for a smartphone on the theme in devices/ (it's also 16px...) your icons should go in status/. So my suggestion is that you change the icon you use for the pairing status to a more relevant name like: kdeconnect-status-unpaired|kdeconnect-status-paired|kdeconnect-status-disconnected - then we can recolor and/or add visuals to the already existing icon and put it in the right folder.

elvaka wrote: Second, the panel on the right shows the list of available "plugins" or features. These icons are also recycled from other places... In KDE4, the mix and match looked okay-ish, but since in Plasma 5 the "action" icons have a different style than other icons, they seem a bit out of place and we might need to replace them (or maybe not?).

Yes you also have to change them. First, settle from where will you pull the icons you can read the icon guidelines: https://github.com/NitruxSA/plasma-next-icons/wiki - for this. I see the ones you use are 32px and since they are features the icons should be taken from apps/preferences/ - also, you may want to use a relevant name like: kdeconnect-plugin/feature/preference-battery-monitor and so on.

elvaka wrote: Finally, the "system tray" icon:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/882 ... stray5.png

This one was already ported to the new style, but a user reported that it looks like a clipboard more than a mobile phone, and I kind of agree Since we also have Klipper in the tray it can be a bit confusing, so maybe we can change it a little bit. I don't know how to make it more intuitive though, any ideas?

And this is all for now. Another day I also have in my TODO list to ask you guys for a new design for the Android app (it needs one), but right now I don't have time to work on that, so let's see what we can do with the icons for now

Thanks for your help!
Albert

The icon is from the Plasma theme not the system theme, it's also different from the one in the system theme.

So the states we need are
- connected but not trusted
- connected and trusted
- trusted but not connected

Can we focus on getting these icons first, then we can figure out the systray icons later.

Hello.

Sorry for being off topic but XDA-Developers (a site well known for modifications to mobiles) has an article on bridging smart phones to a PC. I mentioned KDE Connect and it seems that most people from this Android website have never heard of it. So, I'm thinking that one of the developers of KDE Connect could maintain a small thread to get presence in a large Android community after the Plasma 5 port (and I would be happy to answer questions in that thread, documenting bugs on bugs.kde.org, etc. in said thread). This could lead to wider adoption of Plasma.

http://www.xda-developers.com/best-apps ... id-and-pc/

Once again, sorry for being off topic.

Uri_Herrera wrote:Yes since they are used for IM apps. While there's a device icon for a smartphone on the theme in devices/ (it's also 16px...) your icons should go in status/. So my suggestion is that you change the icon you use for the pairing status to a more relevant name like: kdeconnect-status-unpaired|kdeconnect-status-paired|kdeconnect-status-disconnected - then we can recolor and/or add visuals to the already existing icon and put it in the right folder.

Hm, wouldn't that naming perhaps be a little too specific? Maybe rather call them device-status-*, because they might be reused e.g. in Bluetooth-related UIs?

Yes you also have to change them. First, settle from where will you pull the icons you can read the icon guidelines: https://github.com/NitruxSA/plasma-next-icons/wiki - for this. I see the ones you use are 32px and since they are features the icons should be taken from apps/preferences/ - also, you may want to use a relevant name like: kdeconnect-plugin/feature/preference-battery-monitor and so on.

Same here: These could be useful for other purposes as well. I'd prefer aligning the name with the semantics of the icon instead of the application.