Objectives
The key objective of the project is to allow developers to easily integrate their software (in terms of appearance) with the desktop. The visual inconsistencies that arise from different desktop environments (KDE, GNOME, Xfce...) and custom distributions make it hard for third parties to target Linux. Ideally, any project that follows the Tango guidelines will have a look and feel that matches well with other icons and applications that follow the guidelines.
The style does not aim to be visually unique to distinguish itself. Instead, a secondary aim of the project is a style that makes applications look appropriate running on operating systems common at that time, such that ISVs will find that their application does not look out of place on Windows XP, Mac OS X, KDE, GNOME, or Xfce.
Apart from the visual guidelines, the project aims to provide a set of common metaphors for the icons. Tango follows the Freedesktop.org's Standard Icon Theming Specification and actively develops the Freedesktop.org's Standard Icon Naming Specification, defining names for the most common icons and the used metaphors.
Many free software projects, such as GIMP, Scribus, and GNOME, have started to follow the Tango style guidelines for their icons. Also, Mozilla Firefox 3 uses Tango icons when it is unable to find the user's installed iconset, and also for icons not covered by said iconset.
It is also possible for proprietary closed source applications to use Tango Desktop Project icons. Examples highlighted by the Tango Showroom include VMware Workstation 6 and Medsphere OpenVista CIS.
Read more about this topic: Tango Desktop Project
Famous quotes containing the word objectives:
“Along the journey we commonly forget its goal. Almost every vocation is chosen and entered upon as a means to a purpose but is ultimately continued as a final purpose in itself. Forgetting our objectives is the most frequent stupidity in which we indulge ourselves.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)