Category talk:Item Icons

Use vs Deletion?

Is there a significant benefit to retaining smaller icon versions instead of just scaling the main image to whatever size you need? - Harakoni (talk) 04:25, 5 September 2023 (CEST)

TLDR (Apologies, been mulling this over myself): They have different use in-game and for the wiki, and are often visually distinct, or even unique.

Good question. You prompted me to look up some further information on the subject; In terms of storage space and bandwidth, for the most part, there is very little of concern. However, in this case, I think you might be confusing frugality and functionality. The vast majority of images used on the wiki (discounting screenshots) are from the game files, that primarily uses three distinct types of Images. I am verbose enough without going into details, so I'll Link you to some WIP notes I made for myself on this topic.

The short answer is; these images all have different presentation and use in the game, and some (icons in particular) are visually distinct, and sometimes unique.

It is probably not recommended to slavishly adhere to the way the game presents UI elements when presenting information on the wiki. However, a lot of (64x64) Icons are designed to present well at lower resolutions by their very nature. It would be generally good practice, that when describing a specific game element, that an image representing that element was used as an example. On a related note "faded" images do not scale down well, and also present poorly on a light mode theme. Lastly, though pure conjecture, I imagine using cargo enquiries for thousands of items with images may benefit from 5KB icons over 60KB ones, especially as one of the long term goals is to use this extension to simplify image use and referencing. Personal observations on image use are summarised in the link above.

For the most part file size is not a concern, but for a minority of users and hardware environments, interfacing with the wiki may not be implemented as efficiently or practically as is intended by design (for instance about 5% of hardware configurations will load thumbnails at their full size when I last checked). I think it's worth keeping these edge-case users in mind. On a realted note, 99% of the time, size and number of images is a non-issue, but with certain Pages, the sheer scope of a wiki page may come into play. AFAIK server overhead and storage space are not an immediate concern (though maybe shy away from the supposed 10GB filesize upload limit).

This is just my two cents, but I reckon the visual distinctiveness and specific use of UI icons over tooltip images presents a good case for their inclusion on the wiki, at least for in-line and illustrative use. I won't be at all surprised if someone comes along to dismiss some of the above suppositions. Sorry for the wall of text, I've been wrestling with this question myself. I started uploading them based on overhearing people asking for these on the technical channel of the Discord. Llamageddon (talk) 23:12, 5 September 2023 (CEST)

I notice we have none of the actual passive feature or condition icons categorised. Most of these fit the criteria mentioned above. Possibly a low rez dagger vs a controller tooltip is not nearly as justified. Currently, we are equally lacking in uploads of these to take the place of EA "faded" '_Icons' though. Worth keeping in mind that policing what game files *not* to upload is probably akin to herding cats...Llamageddon (talk) 23:35, 5 September 2023 (CEST)