X/Cygwin icon proposal

[Jehan Bing]

Michael Bax wrote:
> Industry is still receiving PC's preloaded with Windows 2000 -- which will
> be supported until 2007!  Remember, 2 years after Windows 2000 came on the
> scene, IT organisations were still DEPLOYING Windonts NT!

And some still deploy on DOS. Maybe we should limit X to using VGA/VESA
cards? ;)


> Two years after the debut of Windows 2000, the number of *new* Windows NT
> server licenses matched the number of Windows 2000 licenses.  And that's
> just the new liceneses -- just think of the huge installed base.  And as for
> desktops, by 2002 75% of desktops in industry were Windows 9x!

Win2k was never a replacement for 9x, so I'm not surprised that the most
desktop were 9x machines.
It wouldn't matter if 99% were using Win3.1, what count is the OS used
by Cygwin/XFree users.


> The baseline for support today must clearly be pre-XP systems.

All I've seen is opinions or general/old numbers. So to me is still not
clear where we stand *today* in the *Cygwin/XFree community*.


> The problem is that the rest of the software world disagrees.  It is
> standard software practice to support as many platforms as possible with the
> *default* install, even if it is not as flashy as the others.  Sure, you can
> have an option to enable alpha -- but don't make it the default.

I *am* trying to make alpha the default *only* on alpha supporting
machines. I haven't have much time to test on different OS so I was
relying on others to comment. But I got very few replies and most where
flamebaits. :(
Maybe this week-end I'll be able to install older OS and test.
So bare with me if I haven't succeeded just yet. Thank you.


> You originally said that my original monochrome X was ugly due to blocky
> edges, but that is exactly the problem with your icon on Windows 2000
> systems!  :-)

No, my issue with the monochrome icon is that it's not visible on black
desktops. That's why there was a white line on the old icon. You didn't
like the white specks so I made the alpha icon to have a clean white
line so that it is visible on black desktop without looking dirty.


> The lines in Improved.ico (why the quotes?)  are actually in exactly the
> correct anti-aliased proportion to represent the X logo within the limits of
> the bitmap.  The CVS icon is incorrectly proportioned.

The quotes are because, IMHO, it's not an improved icon.
Keeping the proportion, again IMHO, should not be made to the detriment
of readability. I just prefer to have a slightly overweight line than a
blurry one whashout by the background.



> By "safe", Earle meant looking decent.  icon-test9.ico does not look decent
> on all platforms, unlike Improved.ico.

My comment was ironic.


> So far 2 developers and 3 users have contributed to this discussion.  It
> appears unanimous among the users that the alpha icon should not be the
> default.

Oh, you mean that developers are not users?

Anyway, I'm going to stop on this flamefest now, nobody with every agree
with everybody else so it's of no use.

	Nahor