[sugar] icon assistance/validation

[Paul Fox]

i'm trying to design an icon for a new activity, and i'm having a
heck of a time coming up with something appropriate.  part of the
problem is my inexperience with inkscape (the only svg tool that
i think i have access to), but part of it's that i can't easily
tell what the result will look like under sugar.  (for instance,
is there a way to turn the inkscape drawing background to black?)

to really see the icon requires getting it onto my (emulated) XO,
making it part of an activity, and restarting sugar.  in other
words, it's incredibly cumbersome.  and then, i find that i did
something new wrong for the Nth time, and have to repeat the
process.  (and in a "scaled" emulation, which i usually run
because it's faster and usually more convenient, the icons don't
throb or sometimes even display.)

so, in no particular order, are there any linux tools to:
    - "sugar validate" an icon?  i'm thinking of things like
	making sure all strokes are the same, all fills are the
	same (or unset), making sure that non-closed objects
	don't have a fill set, etc.
    - display sugary previews of the icon, in its various colored
	and b/w renditions, and various sizes?
    - automatically do the variable substitution required to make
	fill_color and stroke_color "animatable"?

figuring out how to structure the icon "by documentation" isn't
all that easy, either -- even though there are no fewer than 5
pages which describe parts of the process and guidelines.

[ the rest of this message is a mild whine about the state of
wiki with regard to icons.  i know, i know -- i should spend my
typing efforts fixing the problem, instead.  but i had all this
written before i realized that!  ]

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_Activity_Tutorial
    this page includes some SVG header text, but doesn't say what
    one should do with it.  the header text clearly assumes the
    rest of the icon has been written in a specific way.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_Icon_Format
    this page repeats the header code snippets, but they're surrounded
    by in-line comments that question their accuracy.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Making_SVG_Icons_for_Sugar
    has instructions on how to edit an existing SVG file to make
    it sugar-compatible.  basically, it tells you how to make
    your SVG header look a little bit like the ones referred to
    by the above pages.  but it assumes your icon already matches
    the guidelines.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Human_Interface_Guidelines/The_Sugar_Interface/Icons
    this is the meatiest of the pages, and talks about colors,
    and also a lot about sizes.  however, it refers to "S", "M",
    "L", "XL" as SVG icon sizes ("Icons should be developed and
    saved at Standard (S) size"), but in playing with inkscape
    i've seen no reference to these sizes, making the little
    chart in the middle of the page kind of useless.  is everyone
    else using a different creation tool?

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Icon_Creation
    and finally, though it has the most promising name, this stub
    page contains absolutely nothing at all!  i laughed when i
    found it.  :-)

failing to find any sort of real tutorial, or even a "tips and
tricks" page, i went looking for a sample icon.  other than a
page offering to download over 800 non-sugar icons (no thanks --
i've already created a whole bunch of those ;-), i only found one
sugar icon on the wiki.  and it's unlabeled, and was apparently
only uploaded as a wiki test:
    http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Image:IconRuler.svg
(it's linked at the bottom of the "Making" page.)

so.  what have i missed?  how is everyone else doing this icon creation
thing?

paul
=---------------------
 paul fox, pgf at foxharp.boston.ma.us (arlington, ma, where it's 30.4 degrees)