summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/tde-i18n-en_GB/docs/kdebase/kcontrol/icons/index.docbook
blob: eb875630a9ed4da01ccf2246946cbb547a70cdec (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//KDE//DTD DocBook XML V4.2-Based Variant V1.1//EN"
"dtd/kdex.dtd" [
<!ENTITY % addindex "IGNORE">
<!ENTITY % British-English "INCLUDE"
> <!-- change language only here -->
]>

<article lang="&language;">
<articleinfo>

<authorgroup>
<author
>&Mike.McBride; &Mike.McBride.mail;</author>
<author
>&Jost.Schenck; &Jost.Schenck.mail;</author>
<othercredit role="translator"
><firstname
>John</firstname
><surname
>Knight</surname
><affiliation
><address
><email
>anarchist_tomato@herzeleid.net</email
></address
></affiliation
><contrib
>Conversion to British English</contrib
></othercredit
> 
</authorgroup>

<date
>2003-09-22</date>
<releaseinfo
>3.2</releaseinfo>

<keywordset>
<keyword
>KDE</keyword>
<keyword
>KControl</keyword>
<keyword
>icon</keyword>
</keywordset>
</articleinfo>
<sect1 id="icons">
<title
>Icons</title>

<sect2 id="icons-intro">
<title
>Introduction</title>

<para
>&kde; comes with a full set of icons in several sizes. These icons are being used all over &kde;: the desktop, the panel, the &konqueror; file manager, in every toolbar of every &kde; application, etc. The icons control module offers you very flexible ways of customising the way &kde; handles icons. You can:</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem
><para
>install and choose icon themes</para
></listitem>
<listitem
><para
>choose different icon sizes</para
></listitem>
<listitem
><para
>assign effects to icons (for example make them semi-transparent or colourise them) </para
></listitem>
<listitem
><para
>configure these settings for each of the different places icons will be used in: for example the desktop, toolbars &etc; </para
></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<important
><para
>Please note that some of these settings may depend on your selected icon theme. &kde; comes with two icon themes by default, &kde;-Classic (HiColour) and Crystal SVG. There is also a low colour theme in the tdeartwork package, along with others.</para
></important>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="icon-theme">
<title
><guilabel
>Theme</guilabel
></title>

<para
>Starting at the top, you can see some example icons. These change in appearance depending on the icon theme you select. Most default installations will have only one icon theme available, the &kde; default Crystal SVG theme. There are others contained separately in the tdeartwork package, and you can download more from the Internet.</para>

<para
>Use the <guibutton
>Install New Theme...</guibutton
> to browse to the location of newly downloaded themes, and they will then become available to select from above.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="icons-use">
<title
>Advanced</title>

<para
>Looking at this second page of the icons control module, you will see two areas:</para>

<itemizedlist
> 
<listitem
> 
<para
>An area labelled <guilabel
>Use of Icon</guilabel
>. Here you can choose which particular usage of icons you want to configure, for example <guilabel
>Toolbar</guilabel
> or <guilabel
>Panel</guilabel
>.</para
> 
</listitem
> 

<listitem
> <para
>A preview area where you can see how icons of the selected kind will look using the current settings. Note that the state of this preview also depends on the icon state selected in the effects below (do not worry about that now, we will explain that below). </para
> </listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<para
>When you want to configure icons, first select the usage of icons you want to configure. Change the settings until you like the preview. You can then choose a different icon usage and configure that. At the end, if you are satisfied with your settings, click <guibutton
>OK</guibutton
> or <guibutton
>Apply</guibutton
> to take the changes in effect.</para>

<para
>There are two further options to consider, <guilabel
>Size</guilabel
> and <guilabel
>Effects</guilabel
>. </para>

<sect3 id="icons-use-size">
<title
>Icon Size</title>

<para
>You have two options relating to icon sizes. First, you can choose from a list of icon sizes. Second, you can tell &kde; to draw all pixels using double sized pixels. The largest icon sizes are especially useful for visually impaired people.</para>

<para
>Which sizes will be offered by the icon size listbox depends on the icon theme you have selected in the icon themes control module. For example, the low colour icon theme only offers the sizes 16 and 32 for desktop icons and 16, 22 and 32 for toolbar icons. The HiColour theme offers icon sizes 16, 32 and 48 as well as sizes from 64 to 128. However, as &kde; can not have all these icon sizes in store, icons using size 64 to 128 will be automatically generated which may result in a loss of quality.</para>

<para
>If the icon sizes offered by your chosen icon theme are not enough for you, there is still the option <guilabel
>Double-sized pixels</guilabel
>. If this option is selected, all icons will have double sized pixels, &ie; a 2x2 block instead of normal pixels. While this makes it possible to achieve very large icon sizes, the quality is poor: icons will look <quote
>blocky</quote
>, an effect you may remember if you've grown up using a Sinclair ZX Spectrum or similar. If this is an option for you, using the large sizes offered by &kde;'s HiColour icon theme will always result in a much better quality than using the low colour icon theme with double sized pixels.</para
> 
<!-- 
<para
>You can also choose to have smoothed icons, an effect similar to
anti-aliasing of fonts.  Enable the checkbox <guilabel
>Blend alpha
channel</guilabel
> to see this in action, but note that it will slow
down graphics on a slower computer.</para>
-->

<para
>You can also choose animated icons. Many of the icons have animations associated with them. Enable the checkbox labelled <guilabel
>Animate Icons</guilabel
>, to enable this effect, but note that it may appear slow or jerky if your graphics card is old or you are low on memory.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3 id="icons-use-effects">
<title
>Effects</title>

<para
>Finally you can configure certain <quote
>filters</quote
> to be applied on icons which are in one of three states:</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term
><guilabel
>Default</guilabel
></term>
<listitem
><para
>This is how the icon will look normally.</para
></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term
><guilabel
>Active</guilabel
>:</term>
<listitem
><para
>This is how the icon will look when the mouse cursor is over the icon.</para
></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term
><guilabel
>Disabled</guilabel
>:</term>
<listitem
><para
>This is how the icon will look if its corresponding action is disabled, &ie; clicking on it will not lead to any result.</para
></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

<para
>Select one of these states, and press the <guibutton
>Set Effect...</guibutton
> button to configure a corresponding icon effect. Please note that this configuration will only affect icons of the currently selected <guilabel
>Use of Icon</guilabel
> category (see above): configuring an effect for active icons, while <guilabel
>Toolbar</guilabel
> icon usage is selected, will <emphasis
>not</emphasis
> affect active icons used in other places.</para>

<para
>Below the list of icon states there are two options: you can configure an effect and you can select the <guilabel
>Semi-transparent</guilabel
> option, which will make the background <quote
>shine through</quote
> the icon. To the right of the effects list box there's a setup button to pass additional parameters to a filter.</para>

<para
>The following effects can be applied to icons:</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term
><guilabel
>No Effect</guilabel
>:</term>
<listitem
><para
>Icons will be used without applying any effect.</para
></listitem
> 
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term
><guilabel
>To Grey</guilabel
>:</term>
<listitem
><para
>This filter will apply a greyish look to the icon. Click <guibutton
>Setup...</guibutton
> to configure the intensity of this filter. Note that it is customary for most user interfaces to use this effect for disabled icons only.</para
></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term
><guilabel
>Colourise</guilabel
>:</term>
<listitem
><para
>Icons will be coloured using a custom colour. For example, you may configure active icons (&ie; the icon the mouse cursor is over) to shine golden. Click <guibutton
>Setup...</guibutton
> to configure the used colour and the intensity of the colouring.</para
></listitem
> 
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term
><guilabel
>Gamma</guilabel
>:</term>
<listitem
><para
>A different gamma value will be applied to all icons. If you're no photographer and don't know what Gamma is: it's quite similar to what people call contrast. Just play around with the gamma settings by clicking on <guibutton
>Setup...</guibutton
> to get a feeling for this effect.</para
></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term
><guilabel
>Desaturate</guilabel
>:</term>
<listitem
><para
>Icons will be drawn desaturated. This is quite similar to the <quote
>Colour</quote
> setting on your television. Click <guibutton
>Setup...</guibutton
> to configure the amount of desaturation. </para
></listitem
> 
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

</sect3>

</sect2>

</sect1>

</article>