[Its.an.education.project] Sugar on the EEE PC

[Eben Eliason]

The only reason for the specific canvas size for the SVGs is to ensure
proper visual weight.  A circle and a square, each with a width of
45px, do not appear to be the same size since the circle is inscribed
wholly within the square.  Without a fixed canvas we would have to
scale everything so that its maximum dimension reaches the "desired
drawing size", which would result in inconsistent visual weights of
various icons when drawn side by side.

The limitation was made to make developer's and designer's jobs easier
in the long run, not harder.  If there are suggestions on how to
improve this, I'm certainly open to them.  I spent a lot of time a few
weeks back working on the wiki page for making Sugar icons
(http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Making_Sugar_Icons), which includes step by
step instructions, template files, and a link to a script which can
insert proper entities and can also export HTML previews of the icons.
 The page isn't done yet, but it's a big step in the right direction,
I hope.

- Eben



On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 3:55 PM, Seth Woodworth <seth at isforinsects.com> wrote:
> The svg's that the UI uses are scalable of course.  But the format or pallet
> size of the svg is very specific.
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 7, 2008 at 12:44 PM, Eben Eliason <eben.eliason at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >  >  - Prefer vector graphics over bitmap graphics
> > >
> > >  Often not, as this can be slow.
> >
> > Fair enough; we should certainly be sure we cache the rasterized
> > images when it could have a big impact on performance.  We certainly
> > do this for the pulsing icons used in various locations.
> >
> >
> > >  Also, note that this doesn't actually work. Sugar's
> > >  icons have to be a specific size. With that and the
> > >  two-color restriction, we might as well go back to
> > >  using *.xbm files! It's like the 1980's all over again,
> > >  but incompatible. At least we get similar performance.
> >
> > The two color "restriction" is a core part of the network
> > collaboration identity model, and is only enforced on activity icons.
> > This says nothing about icons used elsewhere in activity interfaces
> > and such.  Also, your comment about scaling is simply inaccurate.
> > SVGs are (by definition, in fact) scalable, and we use that to our
> > advantage all over the UI.  The requirement of the default size
> > ensures that all icons are properly padded for equal visual weight,
> > but has no ultimate effect upon the size the icons get rendered within
> > the UI, which is handled dynamically.
> >
> > - Eben
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
>
>