Huge thanks to our Platinum Members Endace and LiveAction,
and our Silver Member Veeam, for supporting the Wireshark Foundation and project.

Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Wireshark Logo/Icons

From: Rodney Dawes <dobey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:50:39 -0400
Hi again,

I am not subscribed to the list, and have not received any of your
replies in my personal mailbox. In the future please use "Reply to All"
so that I will get a copy. Thanks.

Given the situation, I'll just copy and paste from the web archives, for
my replies.

Guy Harris wrote:
> ...at least for UN*X+X11 desktops. I don't know what the "right" style
> would be for Windows (and would it change between "classic", Luna, and
> Aero?) or OS X (although currently we treat OS X as another UN*X+X11
> desktop).
> 
> Should they have a blue background, along the lines of the current
> icon, or should the style change (or is that part of the icons
> transparent/translucent)? 

The Tango style is designed to fit in on OSX, XP, GNOME and KDE all
together. Vista has made a significant change in direction with some
of its visual style, but many of the interface icons are looking more
like the Tango style, especially in Office and similar apps.

The goal is to avoid having a background, as having a background causes
the icon to appear similar to other unrelated icons, especially in cases
where low contrast is used (black on dark blue). This can cause problems
for users with certain vision impairments. Making the fin blue is an
option though, and the result would look like so:

http://wayofthemonkey.com/wireshark-blue.png


Gerald Combs wrote:
> I'm not opposed to changing the current icon set, but it's important to
> keep an element of the Wireshark logo in order to maintain our brand
> recognition.  I'm also concerned that your icons are a little too
> similar to the current logo, and might dilute the trademark.

The element I kept is the shark fin. It is the most prominent part of
the logo, and is the only part featured in the current icons. As far as
the trademark goes, I'm not sure how it would be diluting it. The TM'd
image, and the current icon, I think are a bit over-simplified for an
application icon/logo on modern operating systems.


Graham Bloice wrote:
> For windows after the advent of Vista, a program now needs the main
> icon in 10
> different variants:
> 
> 16 colours : 16x16, 32x32, 48x48
> 256 colours: 16x16, 32x32, 48x48
> 32 bit (8 bits per RGB + 8 bit alpha) : 16x16, 32x32, 48x48, 256x256
> 
> There is also a 24x24 that is used for the Start menu but MS states
> that this
> doesn't need to be provided as Windows will create it by resizing.
> Some icon
> folks think that the result sucks and that if supplied Windows will
> use the 24x24.

Scaling an image usually results in blurry icons. 24x24 is an easy size
to create, as we just add a 1px border around the 22x22 icon. The 8bit
versions should also be fairly easy to create. The 4bit versions will be
a little more difficult. If the 256x256 version is really needed, I can
get a high-res icon drawn as well. It would probably be a good idea to
have icons in the sizes between 48 and 256 if that is the case, though,
to avoid scaling too much, and getting overly blurry icons.

> Currently the main executable has two different icons (one for docs)
> each with
> 5 different sizes in 256 colours only; 16x16, 24x24, 42,32, 48,48,
> 64x64.

I don't think this would be an issue really. Does wireshark have a
document icon already? I haven't used the program on windows, only
linux, so I'm not sure what all you do for windows.

> GTK may impose other requirements that I'm not aware of.

GTK+ itself doesn't impose any requirements. GNOME and KDE both follow
the Icon Theme Specification on http://freedesktop.org/ though, and are
implementing the Icon Naming Specification, also on freedesktop, as
well. The recommendation from the Tango Style Guidelines, however, is
to include icons in the sizes of 16, 22, 32, and 48 pixels squared.
These are the sizes I have drawn.


Lars Ruoff wrote:
> Sorry, but I think they look quite dull.
> I prefer the actual ones.

Can you please elaborate as to how you think they are dull? Does the
blue version linked above alleviate this thought?

Thanks.

-- dobey