XnView Software

Sorry Thibaud, but your comments and especially your behavior are too childish for me!
So, No Comment !

I'm puzzled,
Clearly I've got to be missing something again here..
I deeply apologies if somehow I offended you, it certainly wasn't my intention.

As you may know, I'm passionate about design, so excuse me if I try to (was it too rudely ?) elaborate why I'm considering the first option to be a better design.(after all, design is my job)
wouldn't you find extremely frustrating to see design decisions being taken solely on the base of arbitrary users preferences ? I certainly would !

oops66 wrote: So, No Comment !

I see, if that is easier for you than acknowledging my point was valid.
I'm alright with that. that is so 'grown up'

now, if you would care to elaborate what you disliked in my 'behavior', that would most certainly allow me to make sure it doesn't happen anymore.

xnview wrote:What do you think :

Second group (group) of icons is abstract and much bettter for now. May be in future for 3d functional should be used another tollbar (2d - top, icons for 3d in bottom line)?

The first group looks simultaneously like photographs AND histograms and is an excellent metaphor for color channels! We're talking about bitmaps, after all, folks.

I guess I'm out-numbered here, but that second group, though graphically cleaner, means something totally different from "channels", for me. A newbie will be confused when they leave XnView for a 3D program that uses the same or similar icons (many do)... and a 3D user will be confused (and critical) when they approach XnView for the first time.

What does 3D have to do with bitmap channels except in reference to some abstract phase space of pixel data whose gamut can just as easily be (and is more frequently) modeled with a curvilinear geometry?

Sorry, I feel strongly about this. IMO, if you use the cube icons, you are sending an ambiguous message to two different groups of users.

JohnFredC, thank you for detailed answer. May be you are right with 3D-users. I will try to add R, G, B letters to icons.

I like those.

I'm really sorry, I just can't resist

A newbie will be confused when they leave XnView for a 3D program that uses the same or similar icons (many do)...

Which function exactly would these icon represent in a 3d application ?
I'm quite familiar with 3d application, and I have honestly no idea with what function you might confuse these icons in a 3D package. (though x,y,z coordinate system is commonly using red, green and blue it's always represented by axes, not cubes!)

What does 3D have to do with bitmap channels

my camera doesn't output any alpha channel (unfortunately), any 3d renderer does.

The first group looks simultaneously like photographs AND histograms and is an excellent metaphor for color channels!

Yeah, that works too, didn't think of that one

Sorry, I feel strongly about this

me too.

let me elaborate a bit more why i believe the cube, (make it a sphere, or a silhouette, whatever but please represent a 'foreground' subject. not a 'background' landscape)
icons are better.

am I right to say that any image holding a relevant alpha channel is predisposed to be composited on top of another background image.(otherwise what's the point of using it's alpha channel)?

so if we can consider that image (which alpha we want to display), as a foreground image, I find the landscape symbol quite inappropriate.
don't you ?

mezich wrote:

I believe these are the one actually confusing,the last icon (or the alpha one - before last one) is plain wrong!
if the last image ('use alpha') was actually using the alpha represented in the 'show alpha' icon we should only see a white sun on a checkered background.

and again if I had a lanscape image with an alpha channel the masked part would definitely be the sky (which would be then be my background image)

mezich wrote:

I'm happy with that (second line).
but, if you could do that (as remarkably as you always do) with a silhouette (?) in place of the cube, that might make everybody around here happy too

edit:
though I'm sure nothing beats the cube (the last icon is spot on and leaves no doubt that you are displaying the 3 composited channels r,g,and b)

thibaud wrote:I'm quite familiar with 3d application, and I have honestly no idea with what function you might confuse these icons in a 3D package.

That's exactly my point. They look like they are supposed to mean something because the visual cues they contain are so familiar (cube, color, face, etc) and heavily implicative in modern culture. But the combination of cues doesn't add up to anything specific enough to be self-explanatory.

Something no one has mentioned yet is how much the context of the three of them (displayed side-by-side) is important to understanding any one of them. That's why I think the landscape/histogram is better.

• 1. The landscape is a familiar metaphor for an XnView image since it is used elsewhere in the Mezich skin to represent one.
  
  2. The color of each landscape emulates the color the landscape would have if only that color were displayed.
  
  3. Displaying the same landscape in each icon implies a commonality of function between the buttons: they form a functional group.
  
  4. The landscape looks like an histogram... a familiar metaphor related to color/exposure control found in most photo software.
  
  5. The color of the landscape/histogram is ALSO the color that the histogram itself would have.

The several familiar and overlapping visual cues in the landscape/histogram icons add together into a powerful visual metaphor which means:

image/histogram + color/channel + display/control

To me cube icons are synonymous with isometric projection in three-dimensional drawing.

• 

More screenshots:

• AutoCAD
• AutoCAD add-on: IsoMaker-Pro
• AutoCAD add-on: CADcompanion CADbrowser
• Alibre Design Xpress
• Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite
• CorelDRAW add-on: IsoCalc
• CorelDRAW add-on: EZ Metrics
• Adobe Illustrator
• Adobe Illustrator plug-in: Hot Door CADtools
• Adobe Photoshop
• Google SketchUp
• eRain Swift 3D
• Micrografx Simply 3D
• Microsoft Word
• Virtual Helsinki

Everyone is familiar with the converging light beams illustrating the additive/subtractive nature of the RGB & CMYK models.

• 

The tricky part would be to find a similar representation of channels for other color spaces like HSL/HSV, L*a*b* and Y'CbCr (without resorting to letters, that is).

1. The landscape is a familiar metaphor for an XnView image since it is used elsewhere in the Mezich skin to represent one.

agree (that's actually the only reason why I used a landscape at first)

2. The color of each landscape emulates the color the landscape would have if only that color were displayed.

not sure I understand. and if i do, then icon colors are totally wrong. thus misleading.

3. Displaying the same landscape in each icon implies a commonality of function between the buttons: they form a functional group.

same goes for the cube, a cow or whatever foreground element I propose to replace the cube with

4. The landscape looks like an histogram... a familiar metaphor related to color/exposure control found in most photo software.

the cube looks like a 3d histogram too if you really want, yet, do we want this to look like an histogram bar...

5. The color of the landscape/histogram is ALSO the color that the histogram itself would have.

not sure I understand either. but the more you talk about it the more I have a feeling that clicking these icons will open an histogram view. which, to me, sounds more like a probable confusion than thinking that clicking the cube icon would create a 3D cube in xnview

So, Except than it's a familiar photo metaphor already used on another icon.
I'm not following you on the reason why the landscape is better.

I think the "foreground" "background" idea I was explaining is a valid point against the landscape.
in any case technically the current landscape icons are just plain wrong like I explained.

to be honest I would actually have very little use for an individual rgb channel viewer. I included it in my proposal because I though if Pierre ever wanted to provide this functionality (which I assumed would be reserved to RGB color mode) that would be the perfect place for it.
the goal of my initial request was: providing a quick indication if an alpha channel is present within any selected image without having to toggle ctrl+h.
and most importantly being able to see extra channel data on multichannel images format (exr,rpf,..) > I, also can have dreams