Subject: [Gimp-gui] Blend tool icons & Color eraser icon

From: "Aurore D. " <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2016 20:44:58 +0100

Hello,
I'd like to suggest the change of the blend tool icon, back to the
"original" icon: a simple square with a gradient in it.
The kitchen blender is not a very good visual metaphor (to quote Akk
on irc "That's not what the tool does, anyway -- it doesn't blend all
the colors in the image into a single uniform color like a blender
would." ) and doesn't translate well.

About the eraser icon, in the Color theme there's a mysterious grey
dot on it, zooming on the svg file I saw it was a little design on top
of the eraser. It's a nice detail but in a small icon it's more
confusing than anything. A plain eraser would probably be better.

Regards
-- 
Aurore

---

From: Jehan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2016 21:14:38 +0100

Hi all,

> confusing than anything. A plain eraser would probably be better.

Adding a comment from Pippin on IRC, since I think he will never post 
himself:

--
20:48 < pippin> with a very critical hat,. blend, warp and perspective 
..  are the tools I find hardest to discern at the moment
--

Actually I liked the old warp tool icon. Not sure why we changed the 
design.
As for perspective, it's true that the wireframe box is not obvious 
immediately, even though it makes some sense.

Anyway ideally if people have alternative ideas for icons which you find 
hard to guess, you are welcome.

Jehan

---

From: staedtler-przyborski <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 17:59:01 +0100

Am 15.02.2016 um 21:14 schrieb Jehan:
> Anyway ideally if people have alternative ideas for icons which you 
> find hard to guess, you are welcome.
>
> Jehan
>
>> Regards
Am 15.02.2016 um 21:14 schrieb Jehan:
> Anyway ideally if people have alternative ideas for icons which you 
> find hard to guess, you are welcome.
>
> Jehan
>
>> Regards
>
First of all thanks for the feedback. As some of gimp's icons are in a 
proof-of-concet mode this is quite necessary.

My five cents:

Warp-tool was painted by Barbara Muraus from Art-Libre project. It was 
adopted first by Inkscape for all of it's three icon themes (generic, 
symbolic and tango) as warp-icon. Somebody used it for Gimp symbolic 
too, so it was quite logical to me, to make use of it in Gimp-colored 
too (which is tango based).
Personally I had my problems with this icon, it is nothing to love 
at-a-first-glance. But the more I thought about an alternative, the more 
I began to accept it as it is.
My conclusion: unless sombody comes along with a better idea suitable 
and accepted for Inkscape-generic, Inkscape-tango, Inkscape-symbolic and 
Gimp-symbolic it will stay in Gimp-colored. Personally I would prefer 
something like are warped  'muschellinie' by Alfred Duerer 
(http://www.matheraetsel.de/archiv/Kurvenanalyse/Muschelkurve/muschel1.pdf)

The original gimp-tool-eraser is a rather clumsy and pink ...
In the region where I live are lot's of companies producing pencils, 
brushes and other drawing and painting tools. Many of these companies 
produce and sell erasers too and all of them have their logo printed on 
upside (to distinguish them from cheap copies):

E.g. Faber-Castell uses two fighting-knights, Stabilo has a swan and 
Staedtler shows a symbol of mars (the god of war).

So I thought why not make the eraser a little more natural and print a 
logo on it ? Naturally using gimp itself is a better idea, I correct this.

Gimp-tool-blend. You are right, it was not my best idea (no it didn't 
come to my mind because of the english term blender, in german it's 
named quite different).

I wanted something not square (because all other tool icons aren't 
square) and something not only showing one type of gradient (which seems 
impossible).
Unfortunately inkscape uses a square (what I want to avoid), but wait, 
libreoffice uses a diamond shape, better. As both use 'handels' (for 
start and second color), the way for painting gimp-tool-blend seams 
clear: the handles with a gradient in background (no sure which one 
looks best, something I must test).

Gimp-tool-perspective was already part of Gimp-symbolic when I entered 
the boat. I only harmonized gimp-symbolic with gimp-colored. Personally 
I believe it is a good interpretation and symbolization of an isometric 
perpective.

Thanks for your support and assistance to find a better gimp-tool-blend 
icon.

Klaus Staedtler

---

From: staedtler-przyborski <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 18:22:44 +0100

Am 15.02.2016 um 20:44 schrieb Aurore D. :
> The kitchen blender is not a very good visual metaphor

Just a side note, interestingly all women in my work and in my 
surrounding who have seen this icon loved it immediately, for them it 
was also no problem to understand what it stands for.

Klaus Staedtler

---

From: Elle Stone <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 13:09:58 -0500

> was also no problem to understand what it stands for.

Perhaps it's a matter of how large the icon is relative to the screen 
size. I didn't realize the blend tool icon was supposed to be a kitchen 
blender until the topic came up on this list. I assumed it was actually 
a roller paint brush and assumed the metaphor was smushing a lot of 
different colors together using a roller paint brush, which seemed a bit 
of a stretch (there's another icon that looks more like a roller paint 
brush).

A simple gradient like the old icon might work better than the kitchen 
blender icon. It could be a rectangular gradient instead of square.

Elle

---

From: Michael Natterer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 22:43:23 +0100

> was also no problem to understand what it stands for.

Yes, it's no problem, in *english*. That icon metaphor is bound
to the word "blend" and therefore completely wrong.

In german, a blender is a "Mixer", and the blend tool "Farbverlauf",
that's 100% unrelated. I guess it's the same in most other languages.

Please get rid of that blender.

Regards,
--Mitch

---

From: staedtler-przyborski <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 23:20:59 +0100

Am 16.02.2016 um 22:43 schrieb Michael Natterer:
>
> Yes, it's no problem, in *english*.
Curiously all my colleges speak german as their native language...
> Please get rid of that blender.
Why is everybody jumping on my side note...

I already have written that using a 'Mixer' was not my best idea and 
that I have (thanks to pushes of the feedback) already another idea. I 
just tried to realize it in colored and it looks good (at least for me), 
but there needs to be an replacement in symbolic too.

I have to go to bed now, tomorrow my paid work needs me.

BTW. first comment of my wife was: "so they killed (!) your idea, i 
loved it" the rest of her comment I better not write here, but she is 
quite angry about wasting too much time.

Klaus Staedtler

---

From: Michael Natterer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 23:37:08 +0100

> quite angry about wasting too much time.

Well I was just stating the obvious.

It would also be very helpful if you dropped by on IRC
from time to time, because that's the place where many
discussions are happening.

Regards,
--Mitch