Talk:Tango Desktop Project

Oxygen
"It [tango] is working on a common set of visual metaphors that are internationally acceptable. There is an ongoing effort for supporting these visual metaphors and specifications in different desktops, and by different iconsets and themes, such as KDE's oxygen iconset."

Do the oxygen icons aim to support the Tango visual metaphors ? If not it may not be worth mentioning the oxygen icons here, rather in an article about the freedesktop specifications, unless they also aim to be cross desktop, and not only for KDE.

84.103.158.105 23:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Oxygen will probably not follow the visual metaphors, so the text is not correct. I will try to fix it. But please note that if a theme follows the standard naming specification, and the icon theme specification, , it is cross desktop. The standard naming specification is something KDE and GNOME already accepted, even if the Tango guys are the ones currently working on it. The Oxygen icon theme will follow these specifications, and therefore, you will be able to use them in GNOME if you wish, just like tango. The current tools for adapting the icons to KDE or GNOME desktops exist for compatibility reasons. KDE 4 will be able to adopt the standard naming specification natively. -- Carloswoelz 18:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

What is tango?
There are two parts of the tango-project: one, improve the icon name specification and the icon theme specs. This is non controversial, but hardly a part of the "tango-project": these are separate freedesktop standards, and discussions about these specs are made on the mailing list xdg at fredesktop.org. The other part, which is exclusive to Tango, is the visual project, which aims to be the default look and hig for linux: (from the Tango web page):

"Eventually, the Tango Desktop initiative aims to provide:
 * 1) A specified default native look.
 * 2) A subsystem to help standardize toolkits on a common look and feel.
 * 3) A complete, standard set of application, mimetype, and stock icons to build upon a style guide.
 * 4) Cross-desktop humane interface guidelines."

So they do aim to be the standard linux look and hig. But to be the standartd, they have to reach for all participants, and KDE developers were not consulted, and don't accept Tango as their default look (they have chosen to go with something else). This is relevant information, and should be included in the article. At least, point out that Tango has not been accepted as the default theme for the main free desktops, KDE and GNOME. They are not the standard because they say they are, but because people accept the iconset and look. And that has yet to happen. -- Carloswoelz 18:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
 * As of around October 2006, GNOME adopted a Tango-based icon style. —  Jeremy  Talk  10:58, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

FF 3
Funnily enough, for Firefox 3 on Linux the Mozilla Foundation apparently plans to lift available icons from the Tango icon set and to design the rest in the Tango style, for improved optical integration into the OS (read: Gnome using Tango look). Seems the circle is going to close. Link If and when it’s done, it should be worth mentioning. --Dr. Zarkov (talk) 22:52, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Primary objective?
The text states it's secondary objective, and notes a misconception before. but I can't see any details regarding their primary objective. → Aza Toth 20:44, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I've done what I can to make it clearer; please take a look and see if you think the tag can be removed. If not, we'll probably need to go looking for someone actually involved with the project... ;-) Perey (talk) 17:46, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Project died?
I guess this page should now be translated to past tense, since the tango.freedesktop.org site no longer exists, the freedesktop.org search engine doesn't give any usable results when searched for 'tango', and Yahoo only gives results from the past...

OhReally (talk) 21:00, 9 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree about rewriting it in past tense. There now is a boutique Web site for the TANGO Project at http://tango-project.org/ that talks in a roundabout way of the icon set that was produced.  It may have been created by one of the original project participants as an exercise in nostalgia.  I have updated the URL in the article to point to said site instead of freedesktop.org, but I can't find any useful links there to download the icon SVG source files or even view examples of the icon graphics, just a few references to sites that have PNG versions of parts of the set and zero useful results when "tango" is entered as a search term.  There doesn't appear to be any way of contacting the site maintainer and the "contributors" are "named" as "Person A" through "Person F".  It's all very hokey-looking and suggests that the project is very dead.  After considerable searching, I found a still-working link at https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtwebengine-attribution-simplebrowser-tango.html to download a copy of the entire library archive, which is located at the freedesktop.org site (http://tango.freedesktop.org/releases/tango-icon-theme-0.8.90.tar.gz).  The most recent timestamp in the archive is 2009-02-11 19:19.  If you wanted to fill out a death certificate for the Tango Project, that's the date and time you would use.  The maintainers of freedesktop.org probably don't even know that they're still hosting it, as there don't appear to be any internal links to it at present. — Quicksilver (Hydrargyrum)T @ 19:14, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Microsoft/IconFactory relationship? Common guidelines across guideline sets?
I noted that there is some relationship between Microsoft/IconFactory icons and Tango/Crystal/Oxygen/other ones. While level of detail may vary, the general rule is for the folder to be "held" root-down, instead of standing semi-open; installer being a box (or window) and disc combo (look at SystemInstaller icon used by WikiProject Software, Microsoft Windows CD autorun icon, some Windows installers based on NSIS) There are only 3 (to my knowledge) icon sets breaking the general rule for the folder: Amiga (though using different metaphors), NT 6.x (Vista and later) icon set, "Stardust". Both of the latter depict the folder as standing semi-open, though the orientation is different. Really, anyone could just google for Mac OS 1 screenshot, GEM screenshot, and so on. Icon sets generally follow same guidelines unless different metaphors are used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.173.12.68 (talk) 07:08, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Official Website
I've attempted to remove tango-project.org as the official website in this article because I don't believe that it is the official site for the Tango Project. It seems clear to me that it has been hijacked and isn't the official site for the project. I think that based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links#Hijacked_and_re-registered_sites, the site should not be included:
 * tango-project.org previously redirected to tango.freedesktop.org.
 * The current version of tango-project.org contains a bowdlerized version of the original site at tango.freedesktop.org, which is clear if you compare Internet archives of the original site to the current domain.

--Martey (talk) 05:11, 1 March 2020 (UTC)


 * You can remove it now, I checked the website deeply and there was no contact or communication ways and even I couldn't find any package to download, it seems a fan-made website; you were right, sorry for hastily reverting.--Editor-1 (talk) 08:52, 1 March 2020 (UTC)