Re: [ide-dev] Window Dressing

[Doug Schaefer <dschaefer@xxxxxxx>]

We¹re using 32px icons. 16 is way too small and helps contribute to the
mess by allowing too many on the screen at once.

And +1 on your point about most toolbar icons being view specific. Not
sure why people put them up on the coolbar (e.g. Who let them put the
debug icons up there?). Makes it much less cool. Maybe the issue is more
editor related since I haven¹t seen too many (any?) editors with toolbars
on them. Is that an issue?

On 12/10/2013, 1:55 PM, "Miles Parker" <miles.parker@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>I was going to mention that I liked the buttons on Doug¹s earlier
>screenshot a lot. Don¹t know how well they¹ll work under 16px though.
>Which brings up the next point which is that we need to think about 4x /
>retina displays. The fact that much of platform infrastructure and ui and
>most project code assumes 16px . (One of the Eclipse smells is that every
>project ends up w/ its own image handler..) Part of what makes the
>Eclipse icons so boring is that they¹re actually conveying a lot of
>information, especially when you start adding the overlays in. And then
>we need to make sure that all of the icons get to the right place in all
>of the various bundles. So to do this right is a bigger project than just
>having a good designer come up w/ some core replacement icons. Along with
>the icons, we should also have a new set of guidelines and (ideally)
>conversion tools and templates.
>
>I think the icon sponsorship idea is great!! I could see many people
>saying ³sure I¹ll kick in $10 so that I can look at a nicer workbench
>every day² and companies that rely on IDE/RCP might say ³yeah, I¹ll kick
>in 2k to give my users a better looking IDE². So the question is, given
>above, how big of a pile of cash would this need to be? If folks could
>come up w/ a good estimate then we could judge what sort of campaign
>would be needed to make it happen.
>
>BTW, I think complexity ‹ the sheer variety of icons ‹ is a separate
>issue. Personally, I almost *never* use the actual coolbar, except for
>perspective shifting. That¹s because almost everything I care about is
>selection or view specific. So for me, object icons are really as
>important as action icons. And we really need to do something about the
>CONTEXT MENU FROM HELL, but that¹s a different story...
>
>
>On Dec 10, 2013, at 7:30 AM, Doug Schaefer <dschaefer@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> +1 but my biggest problem is that there are too many icons thrown at
>>that user. Even making them look modern, it¹s still overwhelming for new
>>users. In Momentics for BlackBerry, we¹ve actually hidden almost all
>>toolbars from the user and it¹s pretty clean. And even this is too many.
>> 
>> <Screen Shot 2013-12-10 at 10.28.35 AM.png>
>> 
>> 
>> From: Mickael Istria <mistria@xxxxxxxxxx>
>> Reply-To: Discussions about the IDE <ide-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Date: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 at 3:51 AM
>> To: "ide-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx" <ide-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Subject: Re: [ide-dev] Window Dressing
>> 
>> On 12/09/2013 11:00 PM, Miles Parker wrote:
>>> If you gave me a small pile of cash and let me spend it on whatever I
>>>wanted to to improve Eclipse user experience*, I¹d sayŠ ³Icons!"
>>> Seriously. The current icon set is more than showing it¹s age. Despite
>>>devs wanting to think that we¹re above all of this, L&F _matters_, and
>>>I think a new set of core flat, simple chromatic icons would do wonders
>>>for user perception and help us all enjoy using the tooling more. It
>>>could also align w/ a move toward more web oriented tools.
>>> 
>> I agree it's a place where much improvement can happen, and with
>>immediate benefit for user-experience.
>>> *I recognize that noone is ever going to do that. This is just a
>>>thought experiment. ;-D
>> You know, the foundation has sponsored projects logos this year. Maybe
>>we could come to a way to get it sponsoring new icons.
>> I also believe that it's worth evaluating the price of such effort (how
>>much a design company would ask for all icons). Then it could be funded
>>by the community (of adopters and users, individual or companies) just
>>like a kickstarter project. People commit to a donation to make it
>>happen, and when there is enough money promised, Foundation retrieve the
>>cash and pays for the new icons, that we integrate once they're ready.
>> -- 
>> Mickael Istria
>> Eclipse developer at JBoss, by Red Hat
>> My blog - My Tweets
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