Cursors parade…
…also known as my vision for the default oxygen cursor theme
Hello everyone,
finnally I managed to get blogging again. I would like to show you some cursors I did in the last few days. I’m sorry if the image below doesn’t look very good, some cursors even look blurred, but that’s not my fault. I spent an entire afternoon in figuring out how to do that composition without having an enormous loss of quality with many programs (inkscape was behaving incredibly badly), so I won’t redo them just because some of them look a bit blurred. Please understand me.
Anyway, to give you the “proof” that they look great, not like that image, I attach here all the PNGs with the basic arrow in all the different colors: (randomly sorted)
But before showing you the whole thing, some disclaimer:
- Those cursors do look pretty nice, but the set is still far from being complete or perfect, or even something that comes closer to that.
- They do look a bit childish and playful, that’s partly because of the composition made in a “raimbowish” way, but that’s also probably because of the shapes, I’m not satisfied at all by the the double arrows.
- The clock will have another post dedicated, as the idea is completely original, and it still needs to be completed
- There is no whitish theme. I know, and I’m already working to have it.
- There is still an incredibly vast space for improvements, they will be much nicer for the final release.
- I’m sure I forgot something else….
So, here is the thing, in all the colors the Oxygen palette permits, so that it will suit any taste: (again, I’m sorry for the blur some of them have)
Simple, every people at aKademy, while I was doing them, told me stuff like: “I would like to see them red.”, “Why don’t you make them green?”, “Hey, yellow is so cool!”, “Please, do them blue!”, “Gray will look awesome…”, etc etc… So, here it comes the solution!
The cursor parade: the right color to anyone!
UPDATE: One of the reason that lead me to make all the different colors and that I forgot to write is usability. Anyone is free to choose the color is better for him/her basing on the color scheme it’s used more on his/her desktop. I made a test with a couple of people that usually loose the usual white cursors of (k)ubuntu on their screen, especially when using programs like oo.o, and I made them try the yellow cursors. They haven’t lost them once until now (more than a week). That’s not because it’s big or something, is just a matter of choosing the right colors, colors that make enough contrast on every background.
Comment by WishMaster — July 11, 2007 @ 9:38 pm
I personally don’t like this theme.
I think a cursor shouldn’t be that colourful and - well just neutral (like the nice-named Neutral Cursortheme ·[http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=28310])
Comment by ruphy — July 11, 2007 @ 9:43 pm
As I already said on the post:
> There is no whitish theme. I know, and I’m already working to have it.
(p.s. they look very colorful just there, ’cause you have all of them in an rainbow-like composition. If you see the colors individually, one color at time, and try them, they are way more sober)
Comment by ReedWood — July 11, 2007 @ 9:46 pm
Hello,
I appreciate every work which is done from anyone for the best desktop out there. But I don’t want to feel like I am playing a computergame while I drive my mouse around.
Cheers. ReedWood
Comment by Diederik van der Boor — July 11, 2007 @ 9:47 pm
I’m using the pCircle-24 cursurs for quite a while now: http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/Pinux’s+Tux+Cursors+Theme?content=19506
They have a bit comic style, but not too much. In fact, I’m using this cursor style over more then a year already (perhaps 2) and it never seams to bore me.
Comment by Med — July 11, 2007 @ 9:48 pm
The cursors look nice. However i fear the default cursor (just the arrow) is a bit too thick and/or the tail too short. Perhaps it is only because i am not used to it though. Otherwise, congratulations and i can’t wait to see the skull cursor.
Comment by Elias P. — July 11, 2007 @ 9:50 pm
I really like them but would like to see how they look on my desktop. Is there already a complete set available (I don’t mind if its incomplete, blurry and beta, just want to test them…
).
Regards, Elias P.
Comment by Sebastiano — July 11, 2007 @ 9:51 pm
Nice, non-white cursors are definitely a plus for usability. I’m thinking of older people having trouble with finding the mouse cursor, especially since a lot of web pages have white backgrounds.
Comment by Mark Kretschmann — July 11, 2007 @ 10:02 pm
I think those look awesome! Goodbye boring cursors
Good work.
Comment by cover — July 11, 2007 @ 10:13 pm
ruphy…i’ve already said you, but… you rocks
i think i’ll choose the blue one ^^
Comment by Troy Unrau — July 11, 2007 @ 10:58 pm
I like, but have two comments (although one is probably a follow up to your blurring problem.)
I think that the very point of the arrow cursor needs to be very well defined (as in, not look blurred due to anti-aliasing and so forth) as it is often used to pick a spot on the screen that is exactly one pixel in size.
Additionally, the I-beam cursor should be as narrow as possible (while still being visible of course) so it does not obscure any text. Think of trying to place your cursor between two lower-case “L”’s that are side-by-side, such as in the name “William” which appears at the bottom of your website
If it is impossible to place the cursor where you want it, its usefullness goes down.
That said, I do very much like the visual style
I’m not sure which colour I’d choose, but they’re growing on me the more I look at them…
Comment by Borker — July 11, 2007 @ 11:37 pm
I have to add a ‘me too’ to what Troy said about the ‘I’ beam text cursor… thinner is gooder definitely. In my usage patterns FWIW, I find that the ‘I’ beam to be the one cursor type that makes or breaks a theme for me. There have been a few themes on kde-look that Í tried out and liked but couldn’t continue with as they were originally created because of a fat ‘I’.
Otherwise, like the look overall and its great to see the oxygen desktop starting to really come together
Pingback by Nuovo tema per i cursori di kde4 « RamieLinux world and beyond — July 11, 2007 @ 11:43 pm
[...] variegata a quanto pare è dovuta alla tante richieste avute all’aKademy07 come si legge nel post originale di [...]
Comment by GCN — July 12, 2007 @ 12:03 am
I’ll go for the one that’s not published yet (the white one of course :).
Comment by Askretes — July 12, 2007 @ 12:03 am
Another vote here for a thinner I-beam.
Otherwise, truly stunning cursors!!
Comment by Mercurio — July 12, 2007 @ 12:25 am
ruphy, show us the clock/hourglass!
Comment by morphir — July 12, 2007 @ 12:27 am
To those of you who think this theme is a bit gutsy: Can you start thinking out of the box?
This cursor theme looks promising. I like from the looks of it. And if there are many ppl who will dislike it after they have actually used it, they are free to change it;)
There will be more than one cursor theme in kde4, right?
Comment by tgb — July 12, 2007 @ 12:31 am
They look really nice.
One thing that I’ve started to notice is that some laptops are coming with 15″ displays that default to 1900×1200. These cursors are hard to see on that type of display because they are too small.
Could you include some larger sizes please?
Comment by ruphy — July 12, 2007 @ 12:57 am
@troy:
For the first note, don’t worry, I spent a lot of time in making the cursors pixel-perfect, so you know what you click. That’s one of the most important things for me. Unfortunately the imperfections you see there are just the blurrines that I got in that image
For the second part, sorry but I cannot really agree. =)
I mean, the actual cursor is 3 px wide, there’s 1 px in the middle, that makes contrast with the darker border, wich is 1 px wide…. how do you make things smaller and still good looking? (and not disappearing on some background)
If you have any idea, please tell me, I would really love to do that!
Comment by ruphy — July 12, 2007 @ 12:59 am
@tgb:
Yap, sure, I also plan to make one version even bigger for ipovedents
Comment by AC — July 12, 2007 @ 1:37 am
Sorry, don’t like them
They’re just too fat and cartoonish.
I do like the colors idea, as long as the default will be white or black.
Comment by Tyler — July 12, 2007 @ 1:37 am
I think the tail is too short too. And yeah they also should be thinner.
Anyway good job, each try for a better cursors is appreciated.
Pingback by KDE4, ecco i primi schizzi per nuovi cursori at linuxinitalia — July 12, 2007 @ 9:15 am
[...] miglioramento, ha pubblicato un’immagine multicolore di questi cursori, osservabile nel suo post Sembra dunque che piano piano i tasselli stiano componendo il mosaico.Lascio a voi i giudizi sulla [...]
Comment by Enrico — July 12, 2007 @ 10:24 am
I’m using the grey cursor from this theme for a while now and I think this resembles perfection!!!!
Since it contains shades of white and black you will see it clearly over white and black windows!
You have to use this to understand why it shines over every other cursor theme!
GOOD JOB !!
Comment by Krishna — July 12, 2007 @ 12:20 pm
I like this Cursor-Theme but could you PLEASE make a left-handed version? THis would really be great since left-handed cursors are hard to find and for us left-handed people they feel way more natural
Thanks
Comment by Jeroen — July 12, 2007 @ 2:49 pm
I personally think they look a bit too cartoonish (both in colors and shapes) to really fit in with the rest of the Oxygen theme.
Comment by Miguel — July 12, 2007 @ 4:31 pm
Hi. I really like the colours idea and also think that generally speaking is a fantastic theme already.
You should go on with the idea and produce a theme installed by default with KDE4 (and surely they it’d be extremely popular) but I’m not sure that this should be “the default”. You have been given good advices in the comments so far. From my point of view, a bit less childish (in shape) and a narrower is the work to be done. The shape, maybe less curved.
Anyway, great work so far! Ciao!.
Pingback by KDE4: Proposta per i nuovi cursori… uhm « pollycoke :) — July 12, 2007 @ 4:57 pm
[...] KDE4, Estetica. trackback Questa bozza di studio per il nuovo tema di cursori di KDE4, a cura di Riccardo “Ruphy” Iaconelli, non mi entusiasma [...]
Comment by marcello — July 12, 2007 @ 9:27 pm
ciao, bel tema però mi piacerebbe un pò più elegante e allineato allo stile oxygen… buon lavoro e complimenti
Comment by David Vignoni — July 12, 2007 @ 11:42 pm
You did an awesome work but I can’t see this as a default cursor theme sorry. I personally won’t use it, too thick and colorful for me.
Comment by ruphy — July 13, 2007 @ 1:58 am
@david:
The double arrows (and the flour) are already gone. Fortunately I use git to keep track of the modifications, and these cursors live into a branch; this means that I won’t loose them even if I radically change all the stuff, and this while keeping the directory and file tree ordinate and clean.
Concretely, this means that I can pick them up later and release them separately for those who like them.
Comment by Kevin Bowling — July 13, 2007 @ 4:01 am
The cursors are much too thick/bold/wide. Please make a more minimal cursor the default - most people don’t want to drag a huge boat anchor around their desktop.
Comment by kollum — July 13, 2007 @ 9:57 pm
Hi.
I love the overall look of this theme.
Well, the fact it’s thick I mean.
On the other hand, about the ‘I’ cursor, it seems your’s is 3 pixels wide. My current theme has a 2/3 thiner one, it’s just a black line and a white line. It’s prety visible anywhere. So perhaps erase one of the pixels in width, and add contrast ???
For the color, I like the browne, grey and bleu ( 7th line ) ones.
Patching the theme manager to (eventualy) choose a cursor color matching your color theme may be a nice addon ^^
Comment by logixoul — July 16, 2007 @ 2:08 am
Thoughts…
- the shapes are cute and original
- the grey coloring fits best
- all of the variants could do with an additional darker variant
- some ideas at http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/5826/paradehb1.png
Comment by divide — November 16, 2007 @ 2:46 am
Just a thought… perhaps you could use transparency to make an I-beam that is only one pixel wide on the center, yet gradually getting thicker and thicker to the serifs.
Comment by Ron — November 14, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
Excellent site - do keep up the good work.