Hey guys!
I guess I'm not entirely adapted to how things are done in the open source world. I made a pull request at github, when I should have sent you all an e-mail here first. So, here is the text I wrote there with a couple of adjustments:
*So, I've been exploring Geany a bit for a little while now, and I must say I enjoy the IDE quite a lot. It took me, however, a couple of tries before I finally gave it a real chance. The reason, to be very frank, is because the application icon gave me the impression that the program has a made-at-home-hack rather than a substantial IDE suited for all kinds of programming situations, which I discovered it is. So, I took the liberty of making a new Geany icon in Inkscape, made a fork and sent a pull request.*
*The idea of this pull request is not necessarily for the community to merge it with no second thoughts, which I don't believe is going to happen. Rather, I would like to start a discussion on the role of the application icon. If, after the discussion, people are happy to use the icon, I'll gladly let the community use it at leisure. If this discussion leads to the community switching to another icon, then at least the community saw the validity of my point. If this leads to the original icon not being replaced, then at least there was a consideration being made.*
*So, as a discussion starter, I'm here listing the roles and priorities I believe the application icon should fulfill:*
*1. To single out the application from the crowd.*
*The lamp and the name 'Geany' fulfill this role very well. I guess its some kind of pun referring to rubbing the magic lamp and using the genie popping out to fulfill your programming ambitions. Its a simple and distinguishable symbol.*
*2. To communicate the ambition that has been, and is being put into the software.*
*I don't believe there is any one programmer who wants to use software that is dying or lacks a community or company continually backing it up. By labeling a piece of software with an icon/logo which looks solid, professional, and artistic communicates that there is enthusiasm behind it. Take the Mozilla Firefox logo, as a noticeable example. Its elegant, artistic and simple.*
*As of today most professional looking icons/logos are based on simple curves and/or shapes to make them explicit and harmonious. They use few, but carefully chosen, colors. The Geany icon as of today fulfills the color requirement, but lacks elegance in it's shapes and lines. My suggestion as a substitute reuses the colors of the original icon, with some slight adjustments, but strips down the lamp into more basic shapes and lines.*
*3. To communicate the purpose of the application.*
*The Geany icon of today fulfills this purpose very poorly, but so does a lot of other icons as well. Look at some examples with, in my opinion, well designed logos: Google Chrome (a ball with colors?), NetBeans (a cube?), FileZilla (a stamp?). The role of the icon/logo is only relevant as long as the user has no knowledge of the application, which is why I put it as the third priority/role.*
So, that's what I wrote. And in order to be able to have something to talk about, I've added the .svg files I've made as an attachment. The first version already got shot down by elextr, so there is a second version here too. Somehow the second one makes me think of Disney, but I guess that's no problem. I'm not sure about the colors and the brackets visible in the second version, and should there be a disc in the background? All suggestions are helpful.
If you are interested to have that much of a party, it would be fun if people started to fire up Inkscape themselves and fiddle with what I made, or conjure up things on their own.
Regards, Emanuel Palm
Hi,
I personally have no opposition to changing the icon, although I'm not sure I like that burgundy colour of the ball very much. I actually rather liked the old icon as well, but I'm aware that my taste often differs from most.
P.S. It might be worthwhile to send this also to the "geany-users" mailing list too since AFAIK there's some web developers/designers and such there that would likely have some interesting opinions of and modifications to your icon(s). Just a thought.
Cheers, Matthew Brush
On 12-07-28 06:30 AM, Emanuel Palm wrote:
Hey guys!
I guess I'm not entirely adapted to how things are done in the open source world. I made a pull request at github, when I should have sent you all an e-mail here first. So, here is the text I wrote there with a couple of adjustments:
/So, I've been exploring Geany a bit for a little while now, and I must say I enjoy the IDE quite a lot. It took me, however, a couple of tries before I finally gave it a real chance. The reason, to be very frank, is because the application icon gave me the impression that the program has a made-at-home-hack rather than a substantial IDE suited for all kinds of programming situations, which I discovered it is. So, I took the liberty of making a new Geany icon in Inkscape, made a fork and sent a pull request./
/The idea of this pull request is not necessarily for the community to merge it with no second thoughts, which I don't believe is going to happen. Rather, I would like to start a discussion on the role of the application icon. If, after the discussion, people are happy to use the icon, I'll gladly let the community use it at leisure. If this discussion leads to the community switching to another icon, then at least the community saw the validity of my point. If this leads to the original icon not being replaced, then at least there was a consideration being made./
/So, as a discussion starter, I'm here listing the roles and priorities I believe the application icon should fulfill:/
/*1. To single out the application from the crowd.*/
/The lamp and the name 'Geany' fulfill this role very well. I guess its some kind of pun referring to rubbing the magic lamp and using the genie popping out to fulfill your programming ambitions. Its a simple and distinguishable symbol./
*/2. To communicate the ambition that has been, and is being put into the software./*
/I don't believe there is any one programmer who wants to use software that is dying or lacks a community or company continually backing it up. By labeling a piece of software with an icon/logo which looks solid, professional, and artistic communicates that there is enthusiasm behind it. Take the Mozilla Firefox logo, as a noticeable example. Its elegant, artistic and simple./
/As of today most professional looking icons/logos are based on simple curves and/or shapes to make them explicit and harmonious. They use few, but carefully chosen, colors. The Geany icon as of today fulfills the color requirement, but lacks elegance in it's shapes and lines. My suggestion as a substitute reuses the colors of the original icon, with some slight adjustments, but strips down the lamp into more basic shapes and lines./
*/3. To communicate the purpose of the application./*
/The Geany icon of today fulfills this purpose very poorly, but so does a lot of other icons as well. Look at some examples with, in my opinion, well designed logos: Google Chrome (a ball with colors?), NetBeans (a cube?), FileZilla (a stamp?). The role of the icon/logo is only relevant as long as the user has no knowledge of the application, which is why I put it as the third priority/role./
So, that's what I wrote. And in order to be able to have something to talk about, I've added the .svg files I've made as an attachment. The first version already got shot down by elextr, so there is a second version here too. Somehow the second one makes me think of Disney, but I guess that's no problem. I'm not sure about the colors and the brackets visible in the second version, and should there be a disc in the background? All suggestions are helpful.
If you are interested to have that much of a party, it would be fun if people started to fire up Inkscape themselves and fiddle with what I made, or conjure up things on their own.
Regards, Emanuel Palm
Geany-devel mailing list Geany-devel@uvena.de https://lists.uvena.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geany-devel
On Sat, 28 Jul 2012 15:30:38 +0200 Emanuel Palm mail@emanuelpalm.com wrote:
Hey guys!
Hi, Emanuel.
*1. To single out the application from the crowd.*
Of course - but half of my free Win~1 software uses circles or near-circle ellipses with something inside. The proposed icons will be lost among them.
*2. To communicate the ambition that has been, and is being put into the software.*
As a light IDE, Geany is mostly complete. It's supported, but "enthusiastically developing it" would be an overstatement. Though new or improved plugins are not rare.
With that in mind, I'd prefer a solid icon, more so that we released Geany version 1 recently, and should have done that at least 10 months ago.
*As of today most professional looking icons/logos are based on simple curves and/or shapes to make them explicit and harmonious. They use few, but carefully chosen, colors. [...]
Looking at my Linux panel [attachment], the best icons are pseudo-3d, and not that simple. Now, I know that the latest trend is flat UI-s with few colors - just look at Metro - but what may look fresh and simple to novadays programmers reminds me of the early 90-s, when we used such things due to lack of resources. (Care to comment, Lex?:)
*3. To communicate the purpose of the application.*
"Programming" is a somewhat abstract concept, and I have yet to see an icon that expresses it. (Except for Matrix Layout, where block schemes were used to describe the control flow.)
4. There is one more practical requirement: the icon should look good in sizes 16, 22, 24, 32, 48 and 64 pixels (size 22 is very often used for 24 too).
Both proposed icons are good in >= 48, _v1 is acceptable in 32, and the lower sizes are bad - run GIMP and see for yourself. The current icon 16x16 icon is bad too. To make the small sizes look really good, one must save the svg as png, and then edit it manually.
Personally I'd be happy with the current icon, but with the perspective of your _v1 icon (which will simplify it somewhat, the isometric POV makes it too complex), less flashy yellow, larger body, and of course, the bright red gems changes to something else, they're an eyesore. Which means rewriting it completely...
Forgot the attachment to my previous mail.
