Toolbar button icons

Message

blukis · #1 Post by **blukis** » 2006-09-12 22:09

I am looking to contribute to my favorite FTP program. Specifically, I think I could improve usability of FileZilla by supplying updated icons for the toolbar buttons (connection manager, message log toggle, tree view toggles, etc.).

- Would this kind of contribution be wanted at all?
- If so, what are the restrictions, and what form should such icons be supplied in? (or, should I go someplace else to get these kind of answers?)

#2 Post by **botg** » 2006-09-13 13:27

Thanks for your offer.

Please have a look at
http://filezilla.cvs.sourceforge.net/*c ... nspecs.htm

#3 Post by **eddan** » 2006-09-13 17:32

Sounds good, blukis. After you've checked out the link botg gave above (remember to copy&paste the whole link, just clicking it probably won't work because phpBB didn't like it), take a look at the development forum, afair there's some posts there about this.

blukis · #4 Post by **blukis** » 2006-09-19 00:59

I've done a little work on toolbar icons, and I now have something to show for it. Only after getting the whole source tree and fooling around with it did I realize I can just edit the files of the installed program to test new icons. I've got to say, that setup really makes it easy to rapidly test new designs.

This is obviously not complete, but I think I have enough for someone to see where I'm going with this, and I'm looking for some feedback.

Quick table view:
http://plurib.us/1shot/2007/filezilla-toolbar/
"Theme" to put in Fz3/resources/ (must edit themes.xml also):
http://plurib.us/1shot/2007/filezilla-t ... -09-18.zip

Some more notes:
- Obviously not complete.
- I have .svg's of these too which I intend to supply (as I'm hopping between inkscape & gimp in my drawing process). The 16px versions are totally redrawn, but I figure the 48px versions will be more-or-less scaled versions of the .svg's.

Golyc · #5 Post by **Golyc** » 2006-09-19 03:31

It's not bad, but its need to be more modern.

Vista is just over there and will be 3D, several flavors of linux already have or will soon have some support to 3d in the interface.

Move your wok to http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/forum/ ... light=icon there you can find some insight of what to do to your icons !

blukis · #6 Post by **blukis** » 2006-09-21 05:22

I guess flashy "3D" images is not my strong suit. That's partially why I'm avoiding trying the main logo/icon and sticking with toolbar icons. I updated the queueview icon and added upload/download icons with a little highlighting, and I think it really makes them "pop" some. I figure I can add this kid of highlight to everything when I get the designs down. (These icons are all in various stages of rough drafts.)

all latest images: http://plurib.us/1shot/2007/filezilla-toolbar/

- queueview (the one that's "in" above"), processqueue, upload, and uploadadd I consider more final than the others. How do you think of these as finished icons flashiness-wise?
- Otherwise, I'm working on various visual metaphores for the whole set. Are they intuitive? Are any particularily confusing?
- I'm particularily wondering about the 'blue folders as remote, yellow folders as local' metaphore - even though the program doesn't actually have blue folders. (Specifically, "queueview" is really difficult to express in 16x16.)
- Just fyi, I'm starting to assign meanings to some colors. I'm not sure if it's obvious. (Though all I'm shooting for is "feeling natural", really.) Namely, red = some action will happen/cancel, green = harmless non-action, purple = connection.) Also, I'm not sure these colors will stick in the long run - just where I'm at right now.

(edited to update links)

#7 Post by **botg** » 2006-09-21 10:40

Nice work so far, keep it up.

Golyc · #8 Post by **Golyc** » 2006-09-23 04:27

In the reconect icon i can't see the world behing the arrow

I don't like the colors in the upload and dowload icons.... Sorry

What about a more bright red in the upload.
I don't think it's a good idea to make download and upload the same color, but i at blank ((green is the standard, but i don't like it too) sorry for the english) about other colors.

In downloadadd and uploadadd i suggest an invertion (inversão) of colours use gray for the + and red (upload) and *color* (download)

blukis · #9 Post by **blukis** » 2006-09-28 04:04

Not the speediest progress, but I thought I'd give an update:

- Reconnect: the arrow is supposed to be overlapping the world a little. There's a gap to give the arrow head some definition. (good? bad?)
- For now, I'm trying to avoid giving upload & download separate colors. My tentative reasoning is a) trying to reserve colors for other meanings, and b) I think the context of where icons appear is enough of a visual cue to tell which is which.
- I updated the colors of the upload/upload-add icons. I think I agree about the color inversion.

Whole view is still here: http://plurib.us/1shot/2007/filezilla-toolbar/
- 32 & 48 pixel icons are harder than I thought!
- 32px icons do, but 48 pixel icons don't seem to be showing up in the program in the "large icons" tab. Don't know if that's a bug or just me. Also, where/how are the 32px & 48px icons used? Is there some way to tell windows to use big icons or something? I like to see them in the program while designing.

(edited to update links)

#10 Post by **botg** » 2006-09-28 14:18

blukis wrote:- 32px icons do, but 48 pixel icons don't seem to be showing up in the program in the "large icons" tab. Don't know if that's a bug or just me. Also, where/how are the 32px & 48px icons used? Is there some way to tell windows to use big icons or something? I like to see them in the program while designing.

Different icon sizes aren't implemented yet. After the release of Beta 1 I plan to improve the interface. More on that in the dev diary soon

Golyc · #11 Post by **Golyc** » 2006-09-28 20:31

blukis wrote:- Reconnect: the arrow is supposed to be overlapping the world a little. There's a gap to give the arrow head some definition. (good? bad?)

How about making the arrow bigger than the globe... and put the globe inside it ? In my head looks good

I think logview will be better with a text file like(tiny of course):
___________
|~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~|

And what that icon with 3 arows a big blue and two smaller red and green is about ? I couldn't find it in the web page you give...

Continue the good job !

Golyc · #12 Post by **Golyc** » 2006-10-19 03:49

I was using filezilla and had an idea:

The in use cancel operation icon is an X, what if whe use the stop hand sign ?

Wikipedia http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... p_hand.svg

blukis · #13 Post by **blukis** » 2006-10-21 02:10

The 16x16 icon set is more or less complete now.

Complete set:
http://plurib.us/1shot/2007/filezilla-toolbar/
For ease of trying in the program, a zip is here:
http://plurib.us/1shot/2007/filezilla-t ... -10-20.zip

Suggestions are still welcome. I might leave these icons alone until I know if/where they'll fit into Fz3. I'm more than willing to work on these more, if/when it's needed.

(Oh, I noticed while a file is uploading [Fz2 and Fz3b2], the "cancel current operation" button does not activate. [It does activate while connecting, and while refreshing server file list.] Perhaps I'm confused about the meaning of this button.)

(edited to update links)

#14 Post by **botg** » 2006-10-22 13:31

Great work blukis. I'll contact you soon for details about inclusion into FileZilla.

blukis wrote:(Oh, I noticed while a file is uploading [Fz2 and Fz3b2], the "cancel current operation" button does not activate. [It does activate while connecting, and while refreshing server file list.] Perhaps I'm confused about the meaning of this button.)

The cancel button gets only activated for actions on the primary control connections. That is the connection used to browse the server.
The items in queue use their own connections, independant of the primary connection. To (re)start/abort queue operations, the process queue button gets used instead.

blukis · #15 Post by **blukis** » 2006-11-09 00:40

Small update... I updated the cancel icon. Lookin' more like the original. I think it's a better symbol, now that I know better what it's supposed to do.
http://plurib.us/1shot/2007/filezilla-toolbar/

(edited to update links)