Create graphical-only icons to replace untranslatable ones

Raising the priority since it's actually quite important to those people not running an English version of Mahara.

Buttons
-------

Replace "add" with "+" (/theme/raw/static/images/btn_addcolumn_left.png and /theme/raw/static/images/btn_addcolumn_right.png)
Replace "remove" with "x" (/theme/raw/static/images/btn_removecolumn.png)

Blocks
------

Dashboard blocks:

 Files and images:

  None.

 Journals:

  All. Blank all icon page headers to a grey block; "Journals" is implied by blocktype grouping.
  Remove text from single entry and tags.

 General:

  Latest Pages. Blank icon page header to a grey block and replace clock with stopwatch.
  My Watched Pages. Blank icon page header to a grey block.
  Popular Pages. (unimplemented yet) Papers icon with blanked grey header & 3 pairs of footprints.
  Notes. Replace "notes" with a wiggly line.

 Profile:

  My Friends. Remove text, or replace icon with something like http://bandonpiya.com/images/activities_pic/icon_friend.gif, http://www.canstockphoto.com/friend-6695567.html, etc.
  My Groups. Remove text, replace with paper doll circles or a matrix of small grouped figures like http://www.123rf.com/photo_11098005_groups-of-people-cartoon-connected-each-other-3d-render.html
  My Pages. Blank icon header text to a grey block.

 Resume:

  All. Blank all icon page headers to a grey block; "Resume" is implied by blocktype grouping.
  Remove text from single field.

 External Content:

  None.

Profile blocks:

 Profile:

  Remove "WALL" graffiti. Maybe replace with smile face graffiti.

Group blocks:

 General:

  Blank all icon page headers to a grey block.

Good comments Melissa,

But we could also thing differently. We could admit that icon with texts or local idiomatic are important. Then we could provide a way of having localised icons.

When Mahara has to display an icon the procedure will load the icon from the language package. My reflection on this is the following :

Option A :
    The procedure looks into the "icons" folder of the selected language pack. If not found, take the icon from the "icons" folder in the English pack. The "icons" folder is a new folder put into each "lang" folder

Option B :
   Access to icons are made by the getstring() function, presently used to display English and localised strings from the lang folders. In the actual lang files, strings with the path to the icons to display are added. Translators can then change the icon's path to a localised icon. Futhermore, anyone could change the icon of the interface, editing the lang files.

Are these silly ideas? or not?

What would happen then if you have a custom theme with custom icons? Would the language overwrite still take place or would the custom theme icons be the dominant ones or could the custom theme designers create two sets of icons as well?

dajan,

I don't think they're silly ideas at all, but I suspect we have enough on our plate already for 1.5.0.

Lets make the icons language-agnostic now and work on drawing up a specification for the process of moving to "translatable" icons for the next version :) I've made a wiki page for it here: https://wiki.mahara.org/index.php/Developer_Area/Specifications_in_Development/Localised_Icons_Buttons

Thanks,
Melissa.

https://reviews.mahara.org/983

Reviewed: https://reviews.mahara.org/983
Committed: http://gitorious.org/mahara/mahara/commit/5df3bb9ecdf9d20f4c09ebc3e3b19f820ec208bb
Submitter: Francois Marier (<email address hidden>)
Branch: master

commit 5df3bb9ecdf9d20f4c09ebc3e3b19f820ec208bb
Author: Evonne Cheung <email address hidden>
Date: Tue Jan 10 16:27:00 2012 +1300

    New blocktype icons, homepage images & column buttons (bug #860173)

    These images include replacements for all the previously
    untranslatable blocktype icons, homepage info graphics, and the
    add/remove column buttons.

    Change-Id: I02bde970a616782b2a97335f7876fe43a6cb0815
    Signed-off-by: Richard Mansfield <email address hidden>