Total Commander 9 public beta release date?

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MVV
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Post by *MVV »

New TC9 functions should indeed have icons, but there is no need in final icons for beta testing...
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Post by *Hacker »

dennis48755,
It's not about finding a program, it's about finding a designer.

Roman
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Post by *ghisler(Author) »

2dennis48755
I will not do it myself, it would look horrible. The problem is to find an icon designer who is familiar with Windows 8/10 style DESKTOP icons...
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hlloyge
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Post by *hlloyge »

Open sourced icons are not solution?
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MVV
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Post by *MVV »

ghisler(Author),
Why do you need Windows 8+ style icons when TC has nice icons in another style? Shouldn't new icons be compatible with current TC style?

BTW, as I remember, Windows 10 has really ugly 4-bit icons a-la Win3.1...
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Post by *sky66 »

ghisler(Author) wrote:2dennis48755
I will not do it myself, it would look horrible. The problem is to find an icon designer who is familiar with Windows 8/10 style DESKTOP icons...
If icon is important to TC9 , suggest also consider to buy from icon "Icon selling sites"

Ex.
https://icons8.com/web-app/category/all/User-Interface

Extended license: icons as part of your product
$999 for all icons including tags in JSON format, API support for online integration and 3 hours of our developers' assistance
You can use our icons as a part of your product


or
https://www.seanau.com/kits/index_16.htm

* All 30,000 Icons for Only $59! Save Up to 60%. Offer Ends Saturday, Mar. 12th

They also have provided "Custom Design Service"..
https://www.seanau.com/icon_design/
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Post by *Lefteous »

Do we have to start over the discussion?


1) Icons means mainly buttonbar icons. These are command-specific. There might be some good stock icons which fit a few commands but to do a whole wcmicons.dll you need quite a few custom icons.
2) Windows 8+ icons for desktop apps are the same as Windows Vista/7 icons. This means:
UX Guide wrote:The style is more realistic than illustrative, but not quite photorealistic. Icons are symbolic images—they should look better than photorealistic! Toolbar icons have less detail and no perspective, to optimize for smaller sizes and visual distinctiveness.

About finding a designer. I wrote a lot about this in similar threads. One way could be to make an offer on a known designer projects website. I'm not sure if it has been tried so far.

2ghisler(Author)
will not do it myself, it would look horrible.
Well the current icons are the baseline :D
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Post by *ghisler(Author) »

The current icons aren't my work either. They were made by a web/icon designer who is also a user of this forum. However, they were made a long time ago, long before Windows Vista/7.

Of course it would be ideal to use a stock icon library, and have only the missing icons designed. I made a few suggestions of stock libraries in another thread, but none of them seemed to please the regulars here. :(
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Post by *j7n »

From what I have seen on screenshots, Windows 10 icons are different and indeed ugly, particularly all icons picturing a 'folder'. (Even if you use fancy, pseudoscientific terms like "ux" to describe them; everything Metro-style is ugly, the king has no clothes.)

With distinct, emphasized borders, current TC icons are already closer to Win 10 style than those of other software (including components of Windows itself), which adopted the blurry XP style. TC looks pleasantly familiar, like Win98 with unrestricted color depth for gradients, somewhat like OfficeXP. The only flaw I can see in the icons is that several concepts about file names have no symbol at all, and use text in tahoma font. It could be worse, such as when a bigger icon is taken and downscaled so you can't recognize at it all.

At the smallest size, Win10 seems to have a weird mix of icons with (files) and without borders (the orange folder in Explorer and various special directories - it blends with the ugly hospital white background).
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Post by *Lefteous »

2j7n
The question is what is the reference for Windows 10 desktop icons?
- The Metro style or Modern style can't be the referencen as it's not made for desktop apps.
- The desktop UX guide says that the very same style should be used for Vista/7/8/10. What I wrote above is mainly what is written in this guide: https://msdn.microsoft.com/de-de/library/windows/desktop/dn742485.aspx
- The real world. Microsoft has never really cared about its UX guides. The desktop part of Windows 10 is definitely a step into the flat style direction. It's really different from Windows 7. For button bar icons this change isn't dramatic though.


In the end there is always some room for different design languages in icons. The constraints in the UX guide are not that strict. But yes when it comes to consistency this is very important.

But can this be achieved by just designing new command icons? As discussed in other threads about this topic Christian pointed out that button bar icons are mixed with applications icons in the buttonbar. So even from a UX guide point of view you'll get at least two icon styles.
Christian is of course right in saying that the command icons and the app icons in the buttonbar shouldn't be so far away visually. It's also true that very few desktop apps have flat style app icons. But hey - how to control this? Who knows how desktop app icons evolve over time? Very difficult to get a consistent solution.
I suggested to separate bars for command icons and app icons, maybe even folder links. The would ease the problem a bit.
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Post by *dennis48755 »

About stock icons - Axialis has a huge selection. Check the "Stock Icons" tab on their website.

Note: their Stock Icons page does not appear to work in MS Edge (big surprise).

PS; I am not affiliated with Axialis other than being a customer. But I am a terrible designer.

Dennis
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Post by *Horst.Epp »

dennis48755 wrote:About stock icons - Axialis has a huge selection. Check the "Stock Icons" tab on their website.

Note: their Stock Icons page does not appear to work in MS Edge (big surprise).

PS; I am not affiliated with Axialis other than being a customer. But I am a terrible designer.

Dennis
For me these are looking much better than the previous suggestions.
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Post by *ZoSTeR »

Horst.Epp wrote:For me these are looking much better than the previous suggestions.
+1

The Flat Edition looks nice too. How about both for €550?
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Post by *Hacker »

Eh, for me not really, they look a bit "toy-like"(?) to me, remind me of the Gnome look - big icons with few details and rounded dull look.
Well but I am not the one to choose icons anyways.
Also, Christian can always buy two sets and let people choose. :D

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Post by *ghisler(Author) »

We will go with the iconexperience g collection, the gradient style which is following the Windows 10 desktop icon rules:
https://www.iconexperience.com/g_collection/

However, only 2 % can be used directly, the rest of our icons have to be combined from various of their icons. They include a tool which allows to do this, so we will try it.
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