DOpus toolbar icon sizes not truly customizable

I come from using TotalCommander...and one thing I miss from using it is the incredibly customizable option for toolbar icon sizes. In TC, I could manually edit the icon size by POINT size to almost anything I desired. The benefit becomes obvious if you're using a laptop like I am. The icon size is no longer a problem as I could shrink down the icons to make room for many more customized icons launching my favorite program, folder, file, etc.

DOpus doesn't let you do this. When you select customize for the toolbar, you only get a total of 3 options for icon size - normal, large or small. I currently use small...but this is clearly deficient. I simply don't have enough room on the toolbar to place my icons. Even taking away the label option is not enough. There simply isn't enough room. DOpus developers...please, PLEASE add icon resizing by point size available for the next release. This would go a long way to giving as flexible an option for users to place their customized commands available. 22 point size is ridiculously large. The options should include resizing toolbar icons downward to a mere 5 point size.

I think if you get a smaller set of icons Opus will use them as they are. (I may be wrong as I've never tried it but I don't see why it wouldn't work if such an icon set was installed.)

If Opus automatically scaled down the default 20x20 icons I expect it would look pretty ugly as scaling small images usually has bad results. Even if it wasn't ugly it would be hard to make out the icons. The 20x20 icons are specially made and rearranged compared to the 32x32 icons, for example. Making an even smaller set where each icon still had clear meaning would mean moving/replacing some of the icon elements, not just a simple scaling.

There should be nothing stopping someone from making a small (e.g. 16x16) icon set, though. There are some good Creative Commons icon sets in this size which could easily be made into an Opus icon set, for example. Just needs an XML file really.

Not sure where "22-point" size comes from. 22-point is quite large. The small icons in Opus are 20x20 pixels which is a lot smaller than 22-point.

[quote="nudel"]I think if you get a smaller set of icons Opus will use them as they are. (I may be wrong as I've never tried it but I don't see why it wouldn't work if such an icon set was installed.)

If Opus automatically scaled down the default 20x20 icons I expect it would look pretty ugly as scaling small images usually has bad results. Even if it wasn't ugly it would be hard to make out the icons. The 20x20 icons are specially made and rearranged compared to the 32x32 icons, for example. Making an even smaller set where each icon still had clear meaning would mean moving/replacing some of the icon elements, not just a simple scaling.

There should be nothing stopping someone from making a small (e.g. 16x16) icon set, though. There are some good Creative Commons icon sets in this size which could easily be made into an Opus icon set, for example. Just needs an XML file really.

Not sure where "22-point" size comes from. 22-point is quite large. The small icons in Opus are 20x20 pixels which is a lot smaller than 22-point.[/quote]

Until Microsoft or Apple figures a revolutionary way of associating files, folders and applications WITHOUT using icons...then we're stuck to using icons...or at least until a new era is ushered in using an entirely different paradigm. I don't see this happening for another 30 years.

TC icon resizing works very well. Try it yourself. You'll be surprised how well the icons "take" when resized very small. I currently have them on TC at 8 point size and they work great. These icons are resized dynamically. So there's no need for a default icon size set. This can be coded into the file manager.

I wasn't arguing against the use of icons.

All I was saying is that:

a) Making a small set of icons is entirely possible if someone wants to do it. There are even existing, free icon sets out there which someone could compile into a drop-in Opus icon set by writing a simple XML file using the guidelines from the Icon Set documentation on GPSoft's website. The XML is basically a mapping from icon meaning (e.g. "Go Up") to icon filename which you zip up with the icons themselves to create a file people can drop into their Opus configs to replace some of all of the icons.

b) In my opinion/experience, resizing small icons smaller has bad results and they are better created by hand. (I feel this is true even for vector image formats. When you get too small certain elements become impossible to see and the icon has to be redesigned.) I'll agree to disagree there as it's clearly a subjective thing.

If you think that GPSoft should invest resources into making an official smaller icon set, or automatic icon scaling, then you should let them know.

Posted the suggestion this morning. I'll never know if they'll take up my idea, though.