<sect1 id="icons">
<sect1info>

<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Mike</firstname>
<surname>McBride</surname>
</author>
<author>
<firstname>Jost</firstname>
<surname>Schenck</surname>
</author>
<author>
<firstname>Kevin</firstname>
<surname>Breit</surname>
</author>
</authorgroup>

<date>24/11/2000</date>
<releaseinfo>1.00.00</releaseinfo>

<keywordset>
<keyword>KDE</keyword>
<keyword>KControl</keyword>
<keyword>icon</keyword>
</keywordset>
</sect1info>
<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: desktop, panel, the
<application>Konqueror</application> 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>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, high color and
low color. You can configure these themes using the icon themes module
(see Look & Feel, Themes).</para></important>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="icons-use">
<title>Use</title>
<para>Looking at the upper part 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>".</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>An area labelled "<guilabel>Preview</guilabel>" where you
can see how icons of the selected kind will look like using the current
settings. Note that the state of this preview also depends on the icon
state selected in the <guilabel>Effects</guilabel> tab (don't care about
that now, we'll 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>In the lower part of the control module you will see two tabs,
<guilabel>Size</guilabel> and <guilabel>Effects</guilabel>. </para>

<sect3 id="icons-use-size">
<title>Icon Size</title>
<para>You've got two options of configuring the icon sizes. First,
you can choose of 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 high color 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's still the option "<guilabel>Double sized
pixels</guilabel>". If this option is selected, all icons will have double
sized pixels, i.e. 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 "blocky", 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 offerd by KDE's high color icon theme will always
result in a much better quality than using the low color icon theme
with double sized pixels.</para>
</sect3>

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

<para>In the <guilabel>Effects</guilabel> tab you can configure certain
"filters" to be applied on every icon. Actually, you can configure these filters
not just for every kind of icon usage, but for every one of three states an icon
can be in:</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, <abbrev>i.e</abbrev> clicking on it will not lead to any
result</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

<para>Select one of these states to configure a corresponding icon effect.
Please note that this configuration will only affect icons of the currently
selected "Use of Icon" 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 "shine through" 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 (<abbrev>i.e.</abbrev> 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
"Color" setting on your TV. Click <guibutton>Setup...</guibutton> to configure
the amount of desaturation.  </para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

</sect3>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="icons-author">
<title>Section Author</title>
<para>This section written by: Jost Schenck <email>jost@schenck.de</email>
</para>
</sect2>

</sect1>



