I am slowly learning KiCAD in hopes to someday use it for work instead of Altium, but I do not use KiCAD frequently yet. You can weigh my response accordingly…
Please, please, please do not do things that reduce contrast or make icons complex. If you have to give them more than a glance to distinguish them, their value drops precipitously. The grayish, flat interface that is currently in fashion everywhere is much more difficult to use, for me at least.
Also, for a complex program like a PCB layout tool, it is a major investment in time to learn and understand the interface, no matter what OS is being used. I move regularly between Windows and MacOS, and for complex programs, I really appreciate the ones that stay nearly the same between OSs.
I’m trying to understand why this icon change was warranted in the first place.
It is quite a big change for all users, and there should be a good reason to change them in the first place. Especially if it results in a completely different “style”.
Apparently there was a licensing issue, but the only real reference I could find is that some of the old icons have no paper trail to their origin. (It was on gitlab, can’t find the reference anymore) Gosh, KiCad started in 1992, and a complete paper trail for each nitty gritty detail can not be reasonably expected.
Response to this change seems to be overwhelmingly negative, and some of the posts are suggestions for improvements of the new icons.
The “positive” reactions to the new Icons are mostly:
And I can understand neither of those reasonings.
Icons should not be “coherent” (unless for the “ambiance” that PureBasic mentioned in his FreeCAD example)
Same with “consistent”. Sure Icons for similar functions should be consistent, but vastly different icons for unrated functions in a program are much better.
Maybe it is just a function of how my brain works. Let’s take a weird example:
Suppose you have a lot of nails you want to sort, 10mm, 20mm, 30mm, upto 200mm., but only have 10 containers to sort them in.
Most people would put the 10mm and 20mm nails in the same box, while I would put the 10mm and 110mm nails in the same box, because the obvious difference is what makes it easy to keep them apart.
[Edit] Joosts response (below) confuses me. Does it mean John is the only one positive to the change? (I don’t want to add another post for this).
No it is not - making icons distinguishable should not be done done through “visual weight”. An extreme position for “visual weight” being one icon all in black another all in white. Icons that are so starkly different usually causes one to stop and pause/look at one particular icon constantly. With “visual weight” being the same is not meant that everything gets a soft pastel tint and becomes virtually indistinguishable. I know you are not an apple fan and I am not trying to convert souls here but there is a very good apple developer video on just this effect.
I just meant to say that I know my bias/soapbox - I appreciate the vast body of work KiCAD presents too much and don’t want to take away from that by having an “icon discussion”. I’ll step off my soapbox now…
Yeah I think we need to give it a bit of time because:
Icons are still iterated on and latest revision is already much better than first attempt
Humans always have a kneejerk reaction to change, any change, good or bad. Let the new style settle for a bit.
That said, some good constructive criticism can be heard even among the loudest voices.
Largest issue I see now is that while icons make sense when large, they scale badly to lower sizes. This is where color would help more.
I challenge anyone to tell me what this is supposed to be without a magnifying glass
In this case nearly unanimous negative feedback is positive. It means that people have grown attached to KiCad. You wouldn’t like to see sudden unexpected changes in your loved ones, would you? Assuming mostly male audience, your wife wouldn’t necessarily appreciate you shaving your long beard without warning after 10 years.
As for the licencing issues… This is the CREDITS file from the v5.1 svg source folder:
ICONS:
The KiCad artwork for the 16px icons was made by Inigo Zuluaga for KiCad.
The work for the 26px icons and the 48px was done by Fabrizio Tappero, fabrizio.tappero<at>gmail.com
License: GPL or equivalent
Some of these icons are derived from icons available from various sources:
http://openiconlibrary.sourceforge.net/
http://www.iconfinder.com
Primo Icon Set by Webdesigner Depot, http://www.webdesignerdepot.com
http://www.oxygen-icons.org/
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com
http://www.everaldo.com/
http://schollidesign.deviantart.com/
GEDA project, http://www.gpleda.org/index.html
Tomaz Solc, http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~pcjc2/geda/icons/mime/
http://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/archives/2007/04/tango_icons_for_geda/
http://www.icons-land.com/
Inksacep icons, http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/TangoifiedIcons
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/free-cad/index.php?title=Artwork#Icons
The Gnome artwork, http://art.gnome.org/
Tago Icon Library, http://tango.freedesktop.org/Tango_Icon_Library
http://www.cliparts101.com
Thorsten Behrens, http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2011-February/007210.html
Konstantin, http://electronix.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=106246&view=findpost&p=1160223
render_mode.svg
color_materials.svg
Mario Luzeiro 2016 License: CC SA
That’s not proper attribution or licencing. You just can’t say “GPL or equivalent”. If you know about GPL you understand why. Some icons originated from elsewhere and if you can’t trace the origins, copyrights and licences you at least risk illegality if you redistribute them, if not even infringe copyright directly.
The new icon set is clearly licenced with http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. I still don’t see clear copyright attribution (who owns the copyright and who have modified the file) in the actual svg source files, I would recommend adding them if possible.
+1
Without the pen it looks like it might be another schematic tool for opamps
LTSpice makes the mistake of having icons for adding specific parts like diodes and right next to them a gate symbol for add component
I don’t like the calculator icon at all. This is not a calculator, it is a suite of design aids. A computer symbol would make more sense.
I liked the LadyBug Icon very much (snif). Maybe a picture of the moth found by Grace Hopper would fit better in the new gray theme, but nobody would understand.
Both icons are, euhm (snif) scratch that, were. excellent examples of something called an “ezelsbruggetje” in Dutch. (don’t know how to translate).
The meaning is some object (or sentence) that has no real meaning in itself but that instantly helps you to remind you of something else, like tying a knot in your handkerchief. The use of a “computer” symbol may be more accurate, but it is to generic to be used in this context.
Indeed I was surprised by the floppy drive icon coming back in the new icon set. Floppy drives have not been the main source for storing bytes ever since HDD’s became affordable, somewhere in the late '80-ies.
[Edit] Don’t understand me wrong. I like the Floppy drive Icon. I grew up with it and it has been anchored in my brain for 40 years. Maybe I should worry less about the newer generations and let them figure it out for themselves
I don’t think copyright infringement for 30 years old icon styles is enforceable, especially if they have been redrawn… I’m surely wrong but I just don’t see the issue.
Can we get some numbers about what would be the most desired changes to the current icon set? A poll?
I work with a big 4K monitor, so the icons tend to be tiny. Detail in a row of grey icons is hard to see. For me colour is much easier. It is not easy to get a single icon set that works on cramped laptop screens at the same time as a big display
As main source sure but as data exchange… this was still valid up until about 10years ago …
Think digital storage scope and corporations. replacing a load of decent DSO isn’t a cheap thing
our last TDS3000 went 5years ago once we got enough upgraded scopes with usb ports
as to icons from thing from the past… its the same with the clipboard (who uses them) or the speed camera being the old pinhole camera from the 18C
I finally got to test the new camo icons in the latest nightly. I can confirm they are horrible! Like I said before, I don’t really use GUI buttons, so I don’t really care about the colors there. However the project tree in a project manager became really hard to use. Takes me forever to figure out what is schematics, what is PCB etc.
What exactly are the benefits of this approach except for not making color blind people feel bad?
Considering the amount of time @Seth_h spent to draw and code all these new icons, I really feel bad for him when people throw some comments like “they’re horrible” and such. TBH, I’m not a big fan either, but I wouldn’t use such offending words. My 2 eurocents.
After playing for a while in the new grey out modeI found some positives too! It helped me to pinpoint the functions that I did use the GUI buttons for. I literally spent a half a minute trying to find the DRC button and then just went and defined a new keyboard shortcut for it. Now my workflow is better! I suspect that was the reason for the camo buttons in the first place.
