New icons with an added cost!

[Dominik]

Ok,thank you...

[Dark One]

First of all, yes I do believe that commander needs it's icons refreshed. Especially the old 32x32, 16 color main icon.

pdavit wrote:

which means that for every copy of TC $1 will go to an icon developer company

I don't know what gave you that idea. Even if a 3rd party company is hired (which we don't need), it would receive a single fixed payment. But that's not why I'm writing this.

I believe that your poll options are chosen badly. This whole thing shouldn't have anything to do with money. If Christian decides to pay someone for the icons, fine. If he chooses to raise the cost, again fine. That's his business. Let's not discuss the money here.


ghisler(Author) wrote:

I'm thinking about a competition (with a fixed one time price for the winner) for designing a new icon. What do you think?

I think that's exactly what you told me in december last year (e-mail). Well, what are you waiting for? Give the order, captain!


Maxwish wrote:

I like the blue disk default icon, but I remember Christian writing he wanted to change it because floppy disks are outdated and not really a symbol of reliability and I can see his point.

Well he's got a point, but the blue disk has practically became commander's trademark by now. I for one would hate to see it replaced by a yellow folder, white file and a magnifying glass. And for a program so general in purpose, it's hard to come up with an appropriate icon.


Maxwish wrote:

Don't bother...I plan to win the competition anyway

You wish! Can't wait to have MY icon smiling from your desktop... (all I have to do is find a way to stop pdavit from calling in those guys he mentioned above...) Just kidding. May the best dwarf win.

[pdavit]

...all I have to do is find a way to stop pdavit from calling in those guys he mentioned above...

Please, do so! I’m getting tired lately and I think I might have become annoying! Plus my phone bill is touching the 4-digit psychological limit!

[Vatchy]

Since most of the people on this forum have already registered TC then you are asking new people if they would pay an extra dollar, or whatever, for the benefit of, not only them, but us also. That way we get a freebie because the newbies are paying for it. Now if you want to ask if the registered people would be willing to send CG a dollar, then do so.

[pdavit]

Since most of the people on this forum have already registered TC then you are asking new people if they would pay an extra dollar, or whatever, for the benefit of, not only them, but us also. That way we get a freebie because the newbies are paying for it. Now if you want to ask if the registered people would be willing to send CG a dollar, then do so.

It may not be necessary actually since theoretically a more attractive look will attract more users so you
can have professional custom-built licensed icons without the added cost. There is a discussion over the
issue in the beta forum of TC and the author is considering a course of action. He is in favour of a
competition actually. We should wait and see. Maybe on v7.0. The version number justifies a fresh look!

Welcome to the forum by the way!

Kind regards,
Panos

[heron]

my tip:
do it like the guys from aston-shell:
make a "new icon design contest" and give the best 3 iconsets a free version of totalcomander in exchange for the right of using their icons...

[ghisler(Author)]

The cost isn't the problem - the problem is to find a designer whose icons will please to most users (at least to more than the current icons), and where the copyright for the icons isn't a problem. For example, Microsoft doesn't allow to distribute the XP icons, while some of the Win2k icons can be distributed (when owning VC++, which I do).

[pdavit]

The cost isn't the problem - the problem is to find a designer whose icons will please to most users (at least to more than the current icons), and where the copyright for the icons isn't a problem.

Well, this can only be feasible if the designers provide us some sample screenshots and we start a poll vote over
different designs to pick the one users like. The problem here is that professional icon developers are not willing
to provide samples because the work is still too much (or time consuming) to be rejected afterwards.

Anyway, I think that the following guidelines to designers should be in favour of most users here (correct me if I'm wrong):

- uniform look for all icons so that they can give an identification feeling of TC (i.e. themed icons)

- simple, distinctive, inornate design without complex contents to increase productivity and easily catch the eye and the meaning they represent

- probably no larger than 32x32 but with the highest colordepth. May also need more striped down versions for backwards compatibility.

- more than just the standard icons on re-design. e.g. extra icons for the new thumbnail mode, custom columns, find files, multi-rename tool etc.

- secondary: three states for each icon: disabled (probably BW colored), regular, hot (i.e. selected). This will require a modification of the button bar to accept those conditions.

- we currently have three icon sections: button bar, drive buttons, filelists. Should be nice to have a unified single file for all three sections I believe.

- possibly a logo for the splashscreen and about window with the disk trademark icon re-designed.

[CoMiKe]

my tip:
do it like the guys from aston-shell:
make a "new icon design contest" and give the best 3 iconsets a free version of totalcomander in exchange for the right of using their icons...

I totally agree, this is the best way to get new icons for TC, and if every designer provide a dll library with icons then the user can choose his preferred one.

I think it would be interesting to create a thread in TC english forum about this competition, and announce it in the mainpage, so any person downloading TC can join the competition.

[StickyNomad]

2pdavit

we currently have three icon sections: button bar, drive buttons, filelists. Should be nice to have a unified single file for all three sections I believe.

Hm, I'm pretty satisfied with these sections. This makes it possible to easily combinate different icon sets for the buttons/lists depending on your taste. Packing this in one single file would constrain you using only one prepared Theme or you'd have manually modify the library.
And dealing with 3 files/config entries isn't such a big deal IMHO.
just my 2 cents

[StickyNomad]

And I'm looking forward to that contest/poll, I'll sure join it with my humble spare-time tries in designing icons for TC. At the moment I have 40+ icons in my "theme" in 16x16 and 32x32pix, 16 & 256col, and my little collection is smoothly growing and gets more design-fine-tuning step by step...

[pdavit]

Hm, I'm pretty satisfied with these sections. This makes it possible to easily combinate different icon sets for the buttons/lists depending on your taste. Packing this in one single file would constrain you using only one prepared Theme or you'd have manually modify the library.

Well, you can still get "sections" even with a unified solution like a .icl file which is easy to manipulated
provided you have the right tool. You are right by supporting three different files since it gives maximum
flexibility but is flexibility by its own the only factor of importance? Maybe Christian could come with a
solution like having TC read the icons from a single zip file which will include the three individual sections.

In this way you combine flexibility with tidiness and you satisfy both advanced and normal users.

Another reason I'm asking for a unified solution is that currently icon collections don't have a uniform system.
We have .icl, we have .dll, we have pure icons, we have bmp treaded icons. That's messy, unorganized and complicated.
It would still be a good solution if we keep the three separate files but make them all of a single format (e.g. icls)
and have a single configurable solution.

Just my 2 and a half cents!

[StickyNomad]

2pdavit:

...but is flexibility by its own the only factor of importance?

yes, sure you are right, but I didn't want to oppose against the single icon package idea in general

Maybe Christian could come with a solution like having TC read the icons from a single zip file which will include the three individual sections.

Fine idea! This would be a very good way to do this

...That's messy, unorganized and complicated. It would still be a good solution if we keep the three separate files but make them all of a single format (e.g. icls) and have a single configurable solution.

Full support!

[pdavit]

News update:

1. A well known TC rival (Servant Salamander) has started a logo contest.

More info here: http://www.altap.cz/salam_en/logo_contest.html

2. Latest WinRAR version (v3.50) includes interface themes based
on toolbar icons. Look here: http://www.rarlab.com/themes.htm

The projects are impressive and I was wondering what are the
resources and procedures for such an outcome!

[MPS]

i think the logo is nice the way it is now. some more icons would be nice thou (like for split/merge files command etc.)