Author Topic: Problem with icons on HiDPI displays  (Read 26391 times)

Offline darmar

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Problem with icons on HiDPI displays
« on: June 10, 2018, 01:03:58 pm »
Icons in C::B are too small on HiDPI displays. I am experiencing it myself and others do too (e.g. http://forums.codeblocks.org/index.php/topic,21724.msg147764.html#msg147764 )
 
Are there any changes on this matter? Do somebody has already started to implement required changes?

If not, I could put some of my efforts for solving this problem.

Maybe somebody could advise what steps should be taken?
I was thinking about (a) the making icons with different sizes and (2) implementing in C::B the possibility to choose these icon sets.
« Last Edit: June 10, 2018, 01:59:44 pm by darmar »

Offline oBFusCATed

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Re: Problem with icons on HiDPI displays
« Reply #1 on: June 10, 2018, 07:45:12 pm »
As a start we need bigger icons.
I'm agitating a person to do the work, but the progress is really slow there.
I've not looked what we need to do after we have the bigger icons.
I'm running at 160dpi and 22x22 icons aren't too small. :)
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Offline darmar

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Re: Problem with icons on HiDPI displays
« Reply #2 on: June 11, 2018, 08:35:21 am »
Quote
As a start we need bigger icons.

Which icons are needed? How big they should be? Maybe I will be more successful in agitating somebody  ;).

Offline oBFusCATed

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Re: Problem with icons on HiDPI displays
« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2018, 08:51:45 am »
All of them. :) I think to be safe we need sizes as big as 64x64 or even 128x128 for toolbar icons.
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Offline headkase

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Re: Problem with icons on HiDPI displays
« Reply #4 on: June 11, 2018, 02:45:08 pm »
All of them. :) I think to be safe we need sizes as big as 64x64 or even 128x128 for toolbar icons.

With the caveat that I'm a noob, if it has to be done then how about doing it once: create scalable vector graphic files, SVGs, for the icons.  Then those definitions can, even on the fly, be used to create whatever size to your heart's content?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Vector_Graphics
« Last Edit: June 11, 2018, 02:46:58 pm by headkase »

Offline oBFusCATed

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Re: Problem with icons on HiDPI displays
« Reply #5 on: June 11, 2018, 04:54:01 pm »
SVGs aren't 100% suitable for the task, because the anti-aliasing algorithms have troubles producing sharp images for the smallest sizes.
So, even if SVG is used as a base for the icons, a manual pass is still required in order to make the icons look really good.
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Offline BlueHazzard

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Re: Problem with icons on HiDPI displays
« Reply #6 on: June 11, 2018, 11:57:16 pm »
SVGs aren't 100% suitable for the task, because the anti-aliasing algorithms have troubles producing sharp images for the smallest sizes.
So, even if SVG is used as a base for the icons, a manual pass is still required in order to make the icons look really good.
i can only confirm this. Converting svg images to low resolution does not work at all... Maybe starting from 128x128 svgs are acceptable, but i have not tested this. Nerveless I would recommend to rework all icons to svg , so for future use they are in a nice scalable format...

Offline darmar

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Re: Problem with icons on HiDPI displays
« Reply #7 on: June 20, 2018, 08:50:39 am »
Work progress

There was created a project called "cb-icons" on github ( https://github.com/specialmart/cb-icons ).
Currently were created only icons used by Debugger plugin.
Icons are created in SVG format using Inkscape and are exported to PNGs. Normaly are created two SVG files for each icon. "*32.svg" are used for export to 32, 36, 128 size PNG files. "*24.svg" or "*48.svg" are used to export to 48 size PNG files. Lines in SVG files are drawn on pixel locations to make PNG look sharp.

Please write your suggestions about the icons.

Questions:
1) Icons are created in 32, 48, 64, 128 size. Icons of 16 size and 22 (for toolbars only) size are already shipped with C::B. Is it OK?
2) It seems to me, that some icons in the image directory "trunk/src/src/resources/images/" are unused. E.g. "compile.png", "compilerun.png" etc. I think, that the Compiler plugin has its own icon set. Am I wrong? Perhaps, can somebody remove unused icons from the C::B repository? Or just write me a list with the unused icons?



Offline oBFusCATed

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Re: Problem with icons on HiDPI displays
« Reply #8 on: June 20, 2018, 09:23:50 am »
1. What about the 24 and 28? I'm currently using size 22 on a 160dpi monitor and they look almost right. The pngs for size 32 looked blurry in firefox, but the svg looked sharper.
2. You'll have to search the source for every icon. :(
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Offline darmar

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Re: Problem with icons on HiDPI displays
« Reply #9 on: June 20, 2018, 09:32:46 am »
Do we need 24 icons, when 22 already exist?

Note: If you look icons directly from a browser, make sure that the zoom level is at 100%. Otherwise, any image is blurred.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2018, 09:35:07 am by darmar »

Offline oBFusCATed

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Re: Problem with icons on HiDPI displays
« Reply #10 on: June 20, 2018, 10:13:16 am »
Not sure about 24.
It would probably be good if we support scales like 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2.0. If we select 16 as base. We get 20, 24, 28, 32.
Also we need some code to select the size automatically, but I guess this is doable in later wx's and it is a separate issue.

Yes, I'm looking the image at 100%, but the blurriness might be caused because the browser does some scaling due to my higher dpi. I've opened it in an image browser and it looks fine.
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Offline BlueHazzard

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Re: Problem with icons on HiDPI displays
« Reply #11 on: June 20, 2018, 11:56:15 pm »
They look really good! Good job!

Offline darmar

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Re: Problem with icons on HiDPI displays
« Reply #12 on: January 27, 2019, 06:34:34 pm »
The work on the icons was going perhaps too slow, but now most of the icons are finished. See on https://github.com/specialmart/cb-icons. Every icon has SVG files in 20, 24, 28 and 32 size which are used to export automatically to 20, 24, 28, 32, 40, 48,... pixel size png files. The person who worked on them (not me) is not professional designer, therefore some adjustment may be required in the future.

Before creation of more icons, I think, it would be nice to know the way how to integrate these icons into C::B code.

Offline BlueHazzard

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Re: Problem with icons on HiDPI displays
« Reply #13 on: January 27, 2019, 07:18:05 pm »
If we work on them, can we repack them? Put them in zip archives for every plugin? So all icons/images are not all in one folder, but grouped to the plugin where they should be? This would make install, uninstall plugins make much more straight forward.

For loading them from the zip file we could add some loader function to the plugin class for easy access...

I use this approach in my plugins and i think it is a lot more cleaner then putting them in the global image folder...

Offline oBFusCATed

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Re: Problem with icons on HiDPI displays
« Reply #14 on: January 27, 2019, 08:43:36 pm »
Before creation of more icons, I think, it would be nice to know the way how to integrate these icons into C::B code.

Do you want to do the work? Or are you asking if any of us could/would do it? I can integrate them during next week...

If we work on them, can we repack them? Put them in zip archives for every plugin? So all icons/images are not all in one folder, but grouped to the plugin where they should be? This would make install, uninstall plugins make much more straight forward.

What do you mean?
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