Sorry if this has already been proposed and I just didn’t understand it, but how about
Having X different hardcoded backgrounds with differing colors (blue, red, green, etc… all from the suru palette)
Then check which of the primary/secondary/whatever you check has the least difference to one of those colored backgrounds and then use that one. This way you could use the highest resolution availible for that appgrid view (256@2)
If I am captain obvious right now, and you are already doing this, then happy laugh and forget this post ^.^
@frederik-f, that’s definitely worth a shot - one possible problem is that the Suru shade with the least difference might clash horribly in some cases. Sometimes not-quite-close-enough is worse than an outright contrast. For instance: the Suru greys are warm and could look a bit weird behind a cold grey icon. I would definitely be curious to see what it looks like though
Whether we use the Suru palette or a colour derived from the icon, my main question is: is it possible for the script to actually create a 256px icon (using the biggest available version of the app’s icon placed on the 256px squircle) for apps that don’t have one? So in that scenario, it would be adding new size icons to fill any gaps as well as replacing the existing sized ones.
@c-lobrano if you zoom right in on the screenshot and inspect the launcher, I think all of the launcher icons have the pixel-perfect 48px version of the squircle (and look pretty good! ) except the Clementine one.
The Clementine squircle looks like one of the smaller squircles scaled up a bit. The best point of comparison is the top edge highlight. If we look at Builder above and HexChat below it, Clementine is a tiny bit more blurry:
Builder:
HexChat:
Clementine:
If the script icons with squircles are going to look crisp at all sizes and in all contexts, I think the only solution is to create all ten (?) icons for each, overwriting the sizes that are present and creating any that aren’t, using the appropriate squircle for each size. I think that would correct the obviously blurry icons on the app grid, and also correct more subtle variations in quality for the smaller sizes. Even without zooming in, I think the difference/slight blur is noticeable for Clementine on the launcher:
Not a criticism because I know this is a work in progress and I think it’s shaping up really well but I wonder if that consistent ten icon approach is possible?
EDIT: Just to add, I think Builder and HexChat look superb on the launcher. If the script can make this level of quality consistent, I think the script approach is very exciting indeed for Yaru
Having X different hardcoded backgrounds with differing colors (blue, red, green, etc… all from the suru palette)
Then check which of the primary/secondary/whatever you check has the least difference to one of those colored backgrounds and then use that one. This way you could use the highest resolution availible for that appgrid view (256@2)
thanks to @jaggers this doesn’t seem necessary, since recoloring the tile doesn’t reduce the resolution.
What happens is that the script surufies all the available icon sizes in a nice and sharp way, tile included, however when app grid doesn’t find the appropriate size, it takes the closer tiled icon and zooms it and again tile included, which now looks blurry as well.
I could create an icon (e.g firefox one) with tile at 256px and the logo zoomed from a lower resolution to 256, the tile would be crisp, but I expect the logo to be blurry anyway.
The limit is the icon size, but let’s see how it goes
Background colours are dull. Can we go for brighter shades?
I think so, but priority is now sharpness, so I haven’t spent much time looking for the best color, yet.
Last night I experimented with applying a color tint to the squircles as you suggested before and now we can go with this approach. I even got better results colorizing the transparent squircles.
I think this will be fine in practice, because Ubuntu will never show the source logo at a larger zoom than it already does currently somewhere in the desktop.
If there are any weird edge cases where the new 256px icon is used at a size where the logo’s blurriness is actually visible, then the original icon would also be blurry in that scenario, because (e.g.) Firefox would just be zooming in on the 128px version it has. So, by definition, I don’t think the “ten icon approach” will make a logo appear blurry on the desktop unless the official icon would also be blurry in that context.
It does mean that if someone loads the 256px Firefox icon in GIMP at 100% zoom they will see the blurriness. But that would be the same as loading the current 128px Firefox icon and zooming in 200% to see how it looks at such a big size. In either case it should be equally blurry, and the desktop won’t use the icons at this size, so I hope there’s no real loss in quality.
Zooming in on the app grid, I believe that Firefox is currently using a zoomed-in version of the 48px icon, whereas the grid normally uses a zoomed-out version of the 256px version. So it would be interesting to see how it looks if Firefox gets a 256px version, which would have to be the 256px squircle + blown up 128px logo.
Hey guys, I’m planning to modify the great Yaru theme. I wanted to change the orange base colors including graphics into blue and maybe more.
I’m new to this and I’m also new to this GPL license thing.
Am I allowed to release it or even to modify it?
What licensees to I have to follow and who do I need to contact?
It would be great if someone can guide me a little bit.
Yaru is released under GPLv3, so I believe that, as long as your release complies with the licence details, you can go on with your project, however I’m not a legal expert in these matters, let’s wait others to reply
Bravo @c-lobrano! As far as I see, all squircles (where present) are the pixel-perfect version for the size, and Firefox looks much clearer this way
In terms of working on the colours - the shades for Chrome, Firefox and Clementine aren’t very vibrant. Is that the exact colour that’s being chosen by the script, or does the grey of the template squircle “show through” when the tint is applied? If it’s the former then it’s just a case of fiddling with the variables. But I suppose it’s more challenging if the grey actually affects the colour.
I don’t think it’s the grey base. The example above uses 50% transparency, which is probably the main cause, moreover I’m not very convinced by the library I’m using to get the palette. I’ll try to fix this in the next days
