+1
Magnifying glass has come to mean “Find” or “Search”
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Really liking the “base” and “New” ideas. “from template” is a tricky one. Thinking “copy-create”, but not having an elegant visual for it so far.
Changed the script, to give me an overview of what I got vs what I need. Output via pdf is not good for this though, as there are plenty of scaling artifacts (below is a screenshot of 100% zoom in acrobat). Need to use another python lib that puts out pure images I think without rescaling or whatever.
Anyone plz can find a link (yes, I’m that lazy) to the original icons? I would like to list them like that as well for comparison sake. Thx.
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https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/tree/master/bitmaps_png/sources
(It was already posted earlier in this thread)
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That’s that dev branch. I was looking for these 
~550, the dev branch got ~480 so far… phew
Just for reference…
KiCADv5_Icon-Overview_old.pdf (904.1 KB)
…some of them are real beauties, heh. And colorful 
This should be the icon set right before the introduction of the v6 ones (is that what you meant by “original icons”?)
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Wow it’s a pleasure to see these. Kind of “oldschool”, but that’s what makes them timeless.
Folder open - clear and obvious.
For save, I’d leave the Floppy symbol as there’s no better symbol to represent Save (even MS who’s spending milliions of dollars on UX studies keep these).
It’s a ‘save as’, not just a save…
In a paint prog I use they look like this… 1st save and then save-as. But yeah, a floppy might be better for that than the project ringbook…
My drawing program uses “Floppy” for Save, “Floppy with pencil” for Save as.
Similar latest LibreOffice.
I’d prefer that icons for common operations (file operations, copy/paste/text formatting etc) would keep to “industry standards”, and only visually blend with other Kicad-specific icons.
I love simple icons, great example were Susan Kare’s original Mac icons.
BeOs also introduced nice distinctive iconset:
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For “Save as…” one could draw on the “…” that signals “will open dialog for details”
(adapted from https://icon-icons.com/icon/floppy-disk-regular/106322 (CC license))
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The “official” icon theme is now muuuuuuch better than the first iteration. Great!
I have some generic suggestions.
This has been said already by me and someone else. The strong red items in some symbols are still drawing too much attention. They are like warning signs, and the actual content is so small that it’s difficult to say what’s inside the red circle.
First, the strong red color isn’t good, except for actions which are potentially destructive or otherwise require special attention. It’s good for Delete and DRC check, not much else. It’s not good for library editor symbols, zone visibility “eyes”, config cogwheel or “Browse Libraries” magnifier etc.
Second, the circle+symbol is too small to allow recognizing the symbol inside the (now red) circle. The “eyes” are difficult to see, so are the “pen” and symbol/fp “link” symbols.
I think someone already suggested leaving some empty clearance around those symbols and using them without the colored circle.
The zone visibility icons caused me headaches even in the old theme. For some reason I never learned to use them automatically without thinking. They just weren’t clear enough, and there aren’t clear enough now. The red “eyes” are part of the problem.
For some inspiration I took the old icons and modified them a bit. Judge yourself if they are easier to interpret. I took away the extra unnecessary details which only made the icons look messy and made it difficult to notice what is relevant.
They look a bit ugly now but IMO convey the meaning better.
In the new icons the rounded corners make it difficult to make mental connection between the shape and zone. Zones usually don’t have smooth rounded corners.
The same problems are in “Add a filled zone” icon: unnecessary details from which you can’t tell what they are and which draw attention unnecessarily, and rounded corners which don’t resemble a zone.
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We agree that the zone display icons are “challenged”. We’re working on a similar idea to yours, but also bringing the zone & rule area tools.
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Thanks for the intermediate summary. Given the length of this thread already, I’m wondering though how we’re supposed to ensure we’re not dropping insights gained along the way.
There’s no pipeline to leverage everything, like concepts -> candidates -> submissions -> contributions, and no galleries maintained by each person interested in contributing.
How should this be organized? “Repo or bust”? 
I’m afraid the line thickness as the only clue will still be challenging, depending on display resolution.
The general idea of showing the contour vs not showing is that in the second case you’ll not see the outline of track&via which you’ve depicted – unless of course you’ll do a cutout but that’s a different story.
I’m still waiting if Seth can share the information for the original set. Then someone can create a base repository with legally clean icons, and people can fork it to play with.
And icons with PCB should be green because PCBs are green, aren’t they
Not if one uses Osh Park for PCB builds. They are purple.
Yes of course boards can be any color these days, especially if one pays extra. And I have used and is well familiar with the OSH park default color, but the default board color in KiCad is green, and I think likewise anything PCB related should be green, for instance the symbols with red and green tracks, the symbols for fills etc.
Likewise I think the opamp icon used for the symbol editor and elsewhere should be have yellow interior and red edge just as the default filled symbols are yellow with red edges, as simple as that.
The green legs on the chip symbol also worked well as it reminds that it belongs to the PCB editing and looked good.
The default wires in the schematic are green. The green wires in symbol for place wire, local labels on a net and the schematic editor icon itself worked well enough in the 5.1 version. The other types of labels should have icons with the same line color as they appear in the schematic after placing them. In other words, think the icon colors should as much as possible reflect the default colors used in the schematics and PCB layout so that the brain needs minimal translation to recognize them. This will be particularly important for ease of new users adapting KiCad.
And I do not think the red color to symbolize type of action works very well nor do I think what it tries to distinguish is is of importance for a new user (who likely would have a hard time figuring it out at all as it is not consistent).
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The question was a bit of a disguise for “how do we deal with the gateway hurdle?” (much-needed engagement and ideas != deliverable) and the chilling effects of “yeah someone might already be working on that” (meaning either one’s work is for naught or someone has their toes stepped on) as well as “someone contributed this and that… and it’s this now forever”.
We’re seeing new people drop by to weigh in, people which likely come because the like KiCad, and not necessarily the competition. Quoting a KiCad developer:
they also used to be cordwood :3
But fun as that may be - the green of PCBs is just as iconic as floppies are for “save”. I’m voting for green = PCB
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