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<articleinfo>

<authorgroup>
<author>&Mike.McBride; &Mike.McBride.mail;</author>
<author>&Jost.Schenck; &Jost.Schenck.mail;</author>
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</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 customizing 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 colorize 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 (HiColor) and Crystal SVG.  There is also a low color theme
in the kdeartwork 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
kdeartwork 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 color icon theme only offers the sizes 16 and 32 for
desktop icons and 16, 22 and 32 for toolbar icons. The HiColor 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 HiColor
icon theme will always result in a much better quality than using the
low color 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 Gray</guilabel>:</term>
<listitem><para>This filter will apply a grayish 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>Colorize</guilabel>:</term>
<listitem><para>Icons will be colorized using a custom color. 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 color and the intensity of the colorization.</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>Color</quote> setting on your television. Click
<guibutton>Setup...</guibutton> to configure the amount of desaturation.
</para></listitem> 
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

</sect3>

</sect2>

</sect1>

</article>
