RFC - Item Icon Naming

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I'd like to get some comments on an idea for tidying up the item/equipment icon naming just a bit more than it already is. As it is now, we have great categories for equipment, like Category:Earring Icons and we are naming the icons along the line of "Slot Icon ## (Rarity).png". However, when it comes to jewelry many icons are re-used... what I'd like to propose is renaming all the jewelry icons as "Jewelry Icon ### (Rarity).png" and then just adding a master Category:Jewelry Icons in addition to the individual ones that can be added manually any time the icon is used in that particular slot. What are folks thoughts on this? -- lordebon 20:30, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I would love to combine those cats. I never suggested it since I thought it would become unwieldy, like Category:Head Icons has become.

I have to ask that if a Jewelry icon does not look like jewelry (such as ) will it be put into Item Icons (where the example icon has many siblings already), or will we still be duping between Jewelry and Items? Janze-Nek 09:40, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The issue with duplicates in the item-world is definately going to be something tricky to resolve. There's a few approaches we can take...

1. Put them under the Jewelry Icon naming, but then include them in Item Icons whenever they are used for an item icon
2. Allow a duplicate file in Item Icons (I don't like the idea, but its still technically an option)
3. Abandon the naming scheme of Jewelry Icon and go to a generic Item Icon numbering system, either as uploaded (Item Icon 0001 (Fabled).png) OR matching the in-game DDS files (something like Item Icon 21.0.0 for the upper-left (0,0) corner icon in the 21st item icon file). The first option results in a more human-understandable system and would be my preferred choice if we choose this option; the second option would result in a clear match with the game files but is harder to grasp. In either case, we'd still categorize them as they are used into the appropriate icon category (Item Icons if used on generic items, and the apropriate equip icon cat if used in equipment). A sort of combination of the two would be to use an Item Icon 0001 naming scheme but order the numbers by the files (ie file 1 at 0,0 would be 0001, the last (25th I think) one in that file would be 0025, then file 2 at upper left would be 26th).

We're always going to have folks uploading a few duplicates, but once we get a good consistent organization scheme for all of the item icons it should reduce it a bit. -- lordebon 17:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I think if this makes your jobs easier and makes it easier for other people to help with categorization and article creation, then you should do it.-- Kodia 13:33, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Do not ask me where or when, but someone once suggested that icons have their own license. I think I disagreed at the time, since adding cats required editing the image anyway. PLEASE add a licensing cat to the selection window! {{ss|-}} is what I use, since it tags the license but does not add any category beyond what is added by hand ( Category:Bracelet Icons being an example). Beg, plead, gasp - put the license option in the Upload window: it will properly license any icons anyone cares to upload, yet will not auto-add a category so it can still be found and checked via Special:Uncategorized files . Janze-Nek 14:12, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed that we need a license for icons. I'll work on whipping one up that will list them as being an icon but not categorize them. Categories by license aren't that useful anyway, in my opinion. -- lordebon 17:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

{{ss|-}} will work fine. It already exists and does not add any cat as there is not a general icon cat and should not be . An auto-cat on an upload license is just asking for trouble, imo. Let us have Uncategorized files so we can find the non-categorized icons, please. Janze-Nek 21:18, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Back in the day, all files that got uploaded would automatically get tagged with {{None Selected}} if they didn't select a license for it. Some time ago that seems to have been broken so that it doesn't do that anymore, much to my annoyance. It auto-categorized those images into a category for images without licensing. But {{ss|-}} not having a category is almost the same as it having a unique category, you still get a list of files there. -- lordebon 00:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

To try to get back to the discussion here, does anyone have any problems with renaming icons to a generic Jewelry Icon ## (Rarity).png format? Item icons that are duplicates can be replaced with references to the Jewelry icon and then the duplicates removed. Category wise, the icons will be manually categorized into:

• Category:Item Icons if they are used on any non-jewelry item (Item Icons to serve as a generic repository or gallery to quickly scan through)
• The appropriate equipment type Icon category, the jewelry ones of which will be categorized into Category:Jewelry Icons

-- lordebon 12:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

lordebon said: "if they are used on any non-jewelry item"

I would rather have icons sorted by what they look like than what they are used for. That strap is a prime example: it could be used as a bracelet, a belt, a necklace (all covered under Jewelry), a quest starter (Item) or even a piece of jerky which would be Food if it ever happened). Yet looking at it, it is just a strap. Let jewelry-looking icons be put in Jewelry Icons, chest icons in Chest Icons, etc. and straps and body parts and etc. under Item Icons. Janze-Nek 13:05, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem I see there is what they look like can be subjective, and that would make for more places you'd have to go looking for icons. I say that mainly because some of the icons SOE uses are just plain weird looking, how to call those?

Maybe the simplest solution is the 'harshest' in terms of naming. Name icons ONLY based on a numbering system (Item Icon 0001 (Fabled).png) and then use the categories for where they are used (Item Icons to contain them all, the others for basically what we use them for now -- icons that we know are used in that slot). The more I think about the icons and how SOE can choose to use one for whatever they want (they have only item icons, they don't break them up into item types in their files) the more I think this may be the eventual simplest way of things. -- lordebon 14:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we should take the Item Icons discussion back to its original forum , and save this one for Jewelry. Janze-Nek 18:14, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

We can move the discussion back to that one if you'd like, I'd forgotten about that one when I started this one up. I think we have the same goal in mind (making it easier to find the icon you're looking for) while not having a lot of duplication, it's just a matter of coming up with a way of doing that. -- lordebon 18:31, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, all you mentioned was the combo Jewelry cat. I was the one who brought up the Item Icon cat - bad me. I have already kicked that forum up the screen. Janze-Nek 18:58, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it started out just talking about Jewelry, but when you brought up items it made sense to me that we could take a step back and try to eliminate some of the redundancy. I'll take the discussion back over to that other thread. -- lordebon 19:05, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Something Semi-Related Edit

In a semi-realted topic, I've found a way to partially automate the conversion of the icons the game uses into PNG images. I will have all the icon components in the game in png format as soon as I finish running it (it's only semi-automated, I still have to click like 3 things per file instead of like 15). Mind you when I say pieces I mean they come in two parts... you have the foreground and then you have the various colored backgrounds. -- lordebon 02:29, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

A bit of news on this front. All the spell and effects icons are ready to be built, and that revamp can go fine. However, it turns out that the backdrops for item icons are tinted in-game, so all I have there is a base, untinted version. If I get time this weekend, I'm going to try to tweak it to see if the way they tint it is easily reproducable or if we'll have to stick with icons from screenshots for items. -- lordebon 12:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)