On Nov 21, 2004, at 11:38 PM, olivier hericord wrote:
Sorry, but I'll take the goofy robot over the disembodied hand of Mickey Mouse.
Sean
I'm with Sean on this one. I don't wish to diminish Dominique's efforts, but I prefer the robot. My only problem with it is the colour scheme. as the robot tends to merge into the typewriter.
If people feel really strongly about having a new icon, then why not launch a TextMate Icon competition with something like a free license or some other incentive as a prize? If this was then widely publicised in the Mac community it would both get a better selection of icons and also raise the profile of TextMate, possibly leading to more people licensing it also.
Stuart
On 23 Nov 2004, at 18:54, Sean Porter wrote:
On Nov 21, 2004, at 11:38 PM, olivier hericord wrote:
<icon.jpg>
Sorry, but I'll take the goofy robot over the disembodied hand of Mickey Mouse.
Sean_______________________________________________ textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/mailman/listinfo/textmate
On Nov 23, 2004, at 20:18, Stuart Wheeler wrote:
If people feel really strongly about having a new icon, then why not launch a TextMate Icon competition with something like a free license or some other incentive as a prize? [...]
Yes, I've considered a competition, but I fear that there wouldn't be enough contributions, especially since the TextMate audience is probably mostly non-graphical persons (sorry if I'm offending someone ;) ) -- so probably best to pay a professional company to make a new icon.
Currently I'm waiting for Lars to create a v2.0 of his icon, which he told me he wanted to do.
Of the alternative icons I've seen, I prefer the one by James Spahr, since it has the braces to symbolize that the editor is for programming (or structured text) -- I think this should somehow be told by the icon.
The cartoon hand is nice and scales better than the current, but it's not closer to Apple's icon guidelines and it lack this telling of the editor being geared toward automation, shell-stuff, etc.
I think if a new icon were to be made, it should better follow the Apple guidelines this time, and it should somehow hint that the editor is a programmers editor -- also there need to be made document icons etc. as well in the same style.
On 23 Nov 2004, at 20:21, Allan Odgaard wrote:
the TextMate audience is probably mostly non-graphical persons (sorry if I'm offending someone ;) )
I think you would be surprised at the potential audience for TextMate.
Don't forget that there are a significant number of people in the Mac community who design websites and who also create a lot of their own graphical content too. Most people who use WYSIWYG tools tend to fall back on a text editor to clean up a lot of the generated junk. This is why BBEdit has macros to clean up code from DreamWeaver et al. For this sort of work a good text editor is essential.
Stuart
Stuart Wheeler wrote:
On 23 Nov 2004, at 20:21, Allan Odgaard wrote:
the TextMate audience is probably mostly non-graphical persons (sorry if I'm offending someone ;) )
I think you would be surprised at the potential audience for TextMate.
True, although the potential audience is a different thing to the target audience.
TM has a clear (to my mind) target audience that Allan is trying to reach and meet the needs of. The potential audience is much much broader, but that has to be considered as a bonus.
drew.
On 23 Nov 2004, at 21:51, Drew McLellan wrote:
I think you would be surprised at the potential audience for TextMate.
True, although the potential audience is a different thing to the target audience.
TM has a clear (to my mind) target audience that Allan is trying to reach and meet the needs of. The potential audience is much much broader, but that has to be considered as a bonus.
What is the target audience of TextMate?
Stuart
On Nov 24, 2004, at 2:20, Stuart Wheeler wrote:
What is the target audience of TextMate?
Interesting question :) As of such, I had myself in mind when I wrote TextMate -- I expect that people who want things to be simple, even when it requires work to make them simple, sums up the type of person I think of as the ideal TextMate user.
So there's no particular task I have in mind for TM and the skill set I expect from the user is curiosity and the ability to combine existing tools to solve new problems (and long term, shell programming + regular expressions, but this can be learned hand in hand with TM).
I don't know how well this fit other editors. Personally I think most editors try to solve a specific task instead of offering “tools” to be combined. Emacs and vim being the exceptions, but these do IMHO fail to make the simple stuff simple, they have a very steep learning curve, and they just don't fit in on OS X -- so probably the target audience for TM is people who really wanted to use Emacs/vim if it wasn't for the disadvantages just mentioned.
Oh, and my envisioned target audience had no printer! ;)
On 24-11-2004 04:41, Allan Odgaard wrote:
so probably the target audience for TM is people who really wanted to use Emacs/vim if it wasn't for the disadvantages just mentioned.
This is *exactly* the reason I am using TM :) I was a hardcore vim user but now I'm working more and more on a machine with OS X on it and was looking for a texteditor that could 'blend in' there and be as powerful as vim was. And while I was getting more and more disappointed with what I found on the internet, I was suddenly pointed at TextMate, which had the promise of doing everything I wanted :)
Jeroen.
On 24 Nov 2004, at 03:41, Allan Odgaard wrote:
What is the target audience of TextMate?
Interesting question :) As of such, I had myself in mind when I wrote TextMate -- I expect that people who want things to be simple, even when it requires work to make them simple, sums up the type of person I think of as the ideal TextMate user.
So there's no particular task I have in mind for TM and the skill set I expect from the user is curiosity and the ability to combine existing tools to solve new problems (and long term, shell programming
- regular expressions, but this can be learned hand in hand with TM).
I don't know how well this fit other editors. Personally I think most editors try to solve a specific task instead of offering “tools” to be combined. Emacs and vim being the exceptions, but these do IMHO fail to make the simple stuff simple, they have a very steep learning curve, and they just don't fit in on OS X -- so probably the target audience for TM is people who really wanted to use Emacs/vim if it wasn't for the disadvantages just mentioned.
That's quite a relief to hear. I was beginning to worry that I wasn't in the target audience. ;-)
As someone who has used Vim with varying degrees of success, but wasn't sure whether to get into it deeper (I even bought the book); and tried and soon gave up on Emacs (I had a book for that, too!), it looks like I'm sat in the middle of it. :-)
Stuart
On 24-nov.-04, at 04:41, Allan Odgaard wrote:
On Nov 24, 2004, at 2:20, Stuart Wheeler wrote:
What is the target audience of TextMate?
Interesting question :) As of such, I had myself in mind when I wrote TextMate -- I expect that people who want things to be simple, even when it requires work to make them simple, sums up the type of person I think of as the ideal TextMate user.
So there's no particular task I have in mind for TM and the skill set I expect from the user is curiosity and the ability to combine existing tools to solve new problems (and long term, shell programming
- regular expressions, but this can be learned hand in hand with TM).
I don't know how well this fit other editors. Personally I think most editors try to solve a specific task instead of offering “tools” to be combined. Emacs and vim being the exceptions, but these do IMHO fail to make the simple stuff simple, they have a very steep learning curve, and they just don't fit in on OS X -- so probably the target audience for TM is people who really wanted to use Emacs/vim if it wasn't for the disadvantages just mentioned.
Oh, and my envisioned target audience had no printer! ;)
Hey, that's me without a printer! ;)
(Never needed the printer with TextMate, though. Sorry, the drunken guy ;)
BTW, this is my first post to the list. Hi everybody. I registered TM a month ago. Though TM missed a few features or a bit of maturity to completely replace BBEdit, I liked the the way it was taking, so I wanted to support the project. After a month of use, TM is my primary editor, I sometimes have to switch to BBEdit, mainly to view/replace some invisible chars and for finding/replacing stuff in huge projects, but when I do, I miss TM. ;) I use TM mainly for Ruby, Obj-C & C, shell scripting, a bit of html and css.
So, thanks for TM, Allan, and continue the good work.
-- Fred B.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and state that I seem to be one of the few who actually like the icon. And I'm not just saying that because I know the author, but because I think it has a lot of personality, whereas for example a mickey mouse hand holding a pencil just doesn't say "textmate" to me.
That said, the current icon isn't perfect, as someone else said it's a little too low on contrast. But nevertheless it is _the_ textmate icon, changing the brand of textmate, however silly some people seem to think it is, just doesn't feel right. Iterate it. Make it better. But starting over from scratch is, in my humble and insignificant opinion, just stupid.
But in the end, I'm just a user. Even if the icon was changed to a blue ball with little pink faeries flying about in it, I'd still *use* textmate instead of complaining about the icon ;)
On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 20:42:01 +0000, Stuart Wheeler <"textmatelist."@mac-fu.com> wrote:
On 23 Nov 2004, at 20:21, Allan Odgaard wrote:
the TextMate audience is probably mostly non-graphical persons (sorry if I'm offending someone ;) )
I think you would be surprised at the potential audience for TextMate.
Don't forget that there are a significant number of people in the Mac community who design websites and who also create a lot of their own graphical content too. Most people who use WYSIWYG tools tend to fall back on a text editor to clean up a lot of the generated junk. This is why BBEdit has macros to clean up code from DreamWeaver et al. For this sort of work a good text editor is essential.
Stuart
textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/mailman/listinfo/textmate
I agree with everything you say. 100%.
On Nov 23, 2004, at 5:10 PM, Johan Sörensen wrote:
I'm gonna go out on a limb and state that I seem to be one of the few who actually like the icon. And I'm not just saying that because I know the author, but because I think it has a lot of personality, whereas for example a mickey mouse hand holding a pencil just doesn't say "textmate" to me.
That said, the current icon isn't perfect, as someone else said it's a little too low on contrast. But nevertheless it is _the_ textmate icon, changing the brand of textmate, however silly some people seem to think it is, just doesn't feel right. Iterate it. Make it better. But starting over from scratch is, in my humble and insignificant opinion, just stupid.
But in the end, I'm just a user. Even if the icon was changed to a blue ball with little pink faeries flying about in it, I'd still *use* textmate instead of complaining about the icon ;)
---------------------- noel@noeljackson.com http://noeljackson.com http://relevantly.com ----------------------
I'm on about 83.4% ;-)
I think the current icon could definitely be improved, but I'm not keen the cartoon hand/pencil.
The main problem with the current icon is that it looks fiddly and undefined at a small size (which it tends to be on my dock) making it hard to see what it is. Perhaps if it were stylised and abstracted more, so it gave a similar sense without having so many small elements, it would make a big difference and preserve the character/branding of the product. Also the colours, while quite nice, are a bit murky and exacerbate the problem. Again small changes here might make a significant impact.
I vote for evolution not revolution.
On 23 Nov 2004, at 14:22, Noel Jackson wrote:
I agree with everything you say. 100%.
On Nov 23, 2004, at 5:10 PM, Johan Sörensen wrote:
I'm gonna go out on a limb and state that I seem to be one of the few who actually like the icon. And I'm not just saying that because I know the author, but because I think it has a lot of personality, whereas for example a mickey mouse hand holding a pencil just doesn't say "textmate" to me.
That said, the current icon isn't perfect, as someone else said it's a little too low on contrast. But nevertheless it is _the_ textmate icon, changing the brand of textmate, however silly some people seem to think it is, just doesn't feel right. Iterate it. Make it better. But starting over from scratch is, in my humble and insignificant opinion, just stupid.
But in the end, I'm just a user. Even if the icon was changed to a blue ball with little pink faeries flying about in it, I'd still *use* textmate instead of complaining about the icon ;)
noel@noeljackson.com http://noeljackson.com http://relevantly.com
textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/mailman/listinfo/textmate
Hello TxMt,
Am 23.11.2004 um 23:10 Uhr schrieb Johan Sörensen:
I'm gonna go out on a limb and state that I seem to be one of the few who actually like the icon. And I'm not just saying that because I know the author, but because I think it has a lot of personality, whereas for example a mickey mouse hand holding a pencil just doesn't say "textmate" to me.
my first post on this list is a "me too". ;-)
I like the little robot, his (or her?) look is absolutely perfect for an editor like Textmate, which is, as I guess, mostly used by programmers and "geeks". The (very nice) "pencil"-Icon looks more like an icon for a wordprocessor.
Regards from Germany Ralf
On Nov 23, 2004, at 21:42, Stuart Wheeler wrote:
[...] Most people who use WYSIWYG tools tend to fall back on a text editor to clean up a lot of the generated junk. [...]
So that's why I get so many requests about better mouse-behavior, surely _my_ defined target audience do not use a mouse in combination with a text editor! :)
I think that the robot is cool. I'd say, keep the robot, but perhaps nix the typewriter?
-Noel
On Nov 23, 2004, at 2:18 PM, Stuart Wheeler wrote:
I'm with Sean on this one. I don't wish to diminish Dominique's efforts, but I prefer the robot. My only problem with it is the colour scheme. as the robot tends to merge into the typewriter.
If people feel really strongly about having a new icon, then why not launch a TextMate Icon competition with something like a free license or some other incentive as a prize? If this was then widely publicised in the Mac community it would both get a better selection of icons and also raise the profile of TextMate, possibly leading to more people licensing it also.
Stuart
---------------------- noel@noeljackson.com http://noeljackson.com http://relevantly.com ----------------------
I'd agree that the robot merges into the typewriter. In fact to me, it looks like he's upside down - his shoes look like eyes to me.
On 11/23/04 2:01 PM, "Noel Jackson" noel@noeljackson.com wrote:
I think that the robot is cool. I'd say, keep the robot, but perhaps nix the typewriter?
-Noel
On Nov 23, 2004, at 2:18 PM, Stuart Wheeler wrote:
I'm with Sean on this one. I don't wish to diminish Dominique's efforts, but I prefer the robot. My only problem with it is the colour scheme. as the robot tends to merge into the typewriter.
If people feel really strongly about having a new icon, then why not launch a TextMate Icon competition with something like a free license or some other incentive as a prize? If this was then widely publicised in the Mac community it would both get a better selection of icons and also raise the profile of TextMate, possibly leading to more people licensing it also.
Stuart
noel@noeljackson.com http://noeljackson.com http://relevantly.com
textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/mailman/listinfo/textmate
__ Christopher Bailey Senior Computer Scientist Online Services Engineering Adobe Systems Incorporated mailto: chbailey@adobe.com Rocklin Vox: 916.415.0471
an icon has to be graphically simple to be displayed well at every size....i want an icon to be recognizable in the dock even if its tiny....
is the quicksilver icon saying "quicksilver" ? is the subethaedit icon saying "subethaedit" ?
an icon just have to summarize a concept ...not the name of the app....
the actual textmate icon is one of the worst icon i ever saw: -poor colors -poor sharpness -poor scalability
ok the textmate icon is a text mate....but that's all....
i think a mockup is a very good idea
On Nov 23, 2004, at 11:16 PM, Chris Bailey wrote:
I'd agree that the robot merges into the typewriter. In fact to me, it looks like he's upside down - his shoes look like eyes to me.
On 11/23/04 2:01 PM, "Noel Jackson" noel@noeljackson.com wrote:
I think that the robot is cool. I'd say, keep the robot, but perhaps nix the typewriter?
-Noel
On Nov 23, 2004, at 2:18 PM, Stuart Wheeler wrote:
I'm with Sean on this one. I don't wish to diminish Dominique's efforts, but I prefer the robot. My only problem with it is the colour scheme. as the robot tends to merge into the typewriter.
If people feel really strongly about having a new icon, then why not launch a TextMate Icon competition with something like a free license or some other incentive as a prize? If this was then widely publicised in the Mac community it would both get a better selection of icons and also raise the profile of TextMate, possibly leading to more people licensing it also.
Stuart
noel@noeljackson.com http://noeljackson.com http://relevantly.com
textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/mailman/listinfo/textmate
__ Christopher Bailey Senior Computer Scientist Online Services Engineering Adobe Systems Incorporated mailto: chbailey@adobe.com Rocklin Vox: 916.415.0471
textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/mailman/listinfo/textmate
olivier hericord wrote:
the actual textmate icon is one of the worst icon i ever saw:
I've seen the icon maybe three times since I installed TextMate. And that's a bunch of weeks ago. I hit Cmd-Space, type 'TX' and voila. I, frankly, don't care as much about icons as I do care about a program's abilities. Call me old-fashioned, but eye-candy is something I look at, after all the other things have been addressed.
In that vain, whatever floats boats, floats mine.
jonas
On 24/11/2004, at 9:39 AM, Jonas M Luster wrote:
I've seen the icon maybe three times since I installed TextMate. And that's a bunch of weeks ago. I hit Cmd-Space, type 'TX' and voila. I, frankly, don't care as much about icons as I do care about a program's abilities. Call me old-fashioned, but eye-candy is something I look at, after all the other things have been addressed.
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/ misc.html#BIKESHED-PAINTING
Charles
On 24/11/2004, at 9:01 AM, Noel Jackson wrote:
I think that the robot is cool. I'd say, keep the robot, but perhaps nix the typewriter?
If you ditch the typewriter, you're left with just a "mate", which is fine until Allan releases another ___Mate program, which also needs an icon... what does he do then? The TM icon needs to be about text, not the mate, IMHO.
Justin
Yeah, I wasn't saying JUST the robot, but perhaps, a Robot with a computer screen, or a big keyboard key, or something besides the typewriter (since that seems like what everyone is complaining about). After looking at it for some time, I really think that it's good, despite the colors & contrast.
--ndj
On Nov 24, 2004, at 10:37 AM, Justin French wrote:
I think that the robot is cool. I'd say, keep the robot, but perhaps nix the typewriter?
If you ditch the typewriter, you're left with just a "mate", which is fine until Allan releases another ___Mate program, which also needs an icon... what does he do then? The TM icon needs to be about text, not the mate, IMHO.
---------------------- noel@noeljackson.com http://noeljackson.com http://relevantly.com ----------------------
I'm no icon designer but how about something simple like the attached .jpg?
On Nov 24, 2004, at 12:06 PM, Noel Jackson wrote:
Yeah, I wasn't saying JUST the robot, but perhaps, a Robot with a computer screen, or a big keyboard key, or something besides the typewriter (since that seems like what everyone is complaining about). After looking at it for some time, I really think that it's good, despite the colors & contrast.
--ndj
On Nov 24, 2004, at 10:37 AM, Justin French wrote:
I think that the robot is cool. I'd say, keep the robot, but perhaps nix the typewriter?
If you ditch the typewriter, you're left with just a "mate", which is fine until Allan releases another ___Mate program, which also needs an icon... what does he do then? The TM icon needs to be about text, not the mate, IMHO.
noel@noeljackson.com http://noeljackson.com http://relevantly.com
textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/mailman/listinfo/textmate
I know that TextMate isn't an open source project, but maybe the original icon designer could release a higher resolution version of the logo, and in the interest of evolution, let us graphic designers play around with it?
I too like the concept of the logo, but the execution is a bit lacking for all the reasons mentioned previously. When I look at my dock, I want TM to stand out as much as Thunderbird and Firefox. Having some source artwork to work with would give us a chance to help out in that effort.
Chris
On 24 Nov 2004, at 23:21, Chris Messina wrote:
I know that TextMate isn't an open source project, but maybe the original icon designer could release a higher resolution version of the logo, and in the interest of evolution, let us graphic designers play around with it?
I knew we had some graphic designer types out there...
With regards to the icon, the robot reminds me of the Cadburys "Smash" Martian robots on the hugely popular 1970's UK TV advert for instant mashed potato.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/572903.stm
Not only do they look similar, but they both laugh in the face of the feeble, outdated alternatives. ;-)
Stuart
On Nov 25, 2004, at 0:21, Chris Messina wrote:
I know that TextMate isn't an open source project, but maybe the original icon designer could release a higher resolution version of the logo, and in the interest of evolution, let us graphic designers play around with it?
I'm all for that and I've forwarded this letter to Lars (who did the org. icon)!
On Nov 25, 2004, at 0:21, Chris Messina wrote:
I know that TextMate isn't an open source project, but maybe the original icon designer could release a higher resolution version of the logo, and in the interest of evolution, let us graphic designers play around with it?
http://macromates.com/textmate/tm_icon.psd.gz
The typewriter has some effects on it though (I'm hoping Lars will send me the clipart w/o effects).
Well, I threw together a really basic sketch... While I love the "little guy", I think that part of the problem with the logo is its reliance on small details that get lost at smaller sizes. Not that this one is totally better, but I think it would scale better and it provides some food for thought... not at all final quality!
Chris
Allan Odgaard wrote:
On Nov 25, 2004, at 0:21, Chris Messina wrote:
I know that TextMate isn't an open source project, but maybe the original icon designer could release a higher resolution version of the logo, and in the interest of evolution, let us graphic designers play around with it?
http://macromates.com/textmate/tm_icon.psd.gz
The typewriter has some effects on it though (I'm hoping Lars will send me the clipart w/o effects).
textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/mailman/listinfo/textmate
On Nov 24, 2004, at 23:24, jheyer wrote:
I'm no icon designer but how about something simple like the attached .jpg?
I don't know if I'm allowed to say so, but justin did a mockup of a single key with a gear on it (as the glyph). And I do like the symbolic value of this (i.e. key = type text, gear = automation).
I would like to see a sheet of code behind the key or some code/markup superimposed onto the key, just to emphasize the purpose of the program/icon -- but I don't think justin was too keen on that idea ;)
On Nov 24, 2004, at 2:41 PM, Allan Odgaard wrote:
On Nov 24, 2004, at 23:24, jheyer wrote:
I'm no icon designer but how about something simple like the attached .jpg?
I don't know if I'm allowed to say so, but justin did a mockup of a single key with a gear on it (as the glyph). And I do like the symbolic value of this (i.e. key = type text, gear = automation).
I like this concept. I had been thinking about a single key in some form or another for a while now. I also think the SubEthaEdit icon is brilliant. Perhaps we could leverage that concept -- except have one person (or robot?), instead of three, manipulating the pencil.
Drew -- thanks for the icon color study. Good stuff! But I'm not sure if it's a logical conclusion to base the icon's palette on colors which have yet to have been used by other apps. I think one must take into consideration the psychology of color beforehand.
I don't know if I'm allowed to say so, but justin did a mockup of a single key with a gear on it (as the glyph). And I do like the symbolic value of this (i.e. key = type text, gear = automation).
Ok, well I was going to do a "real" version before putting it out there, but since Allan blabbed, I might as well post the mock-up a knocked up for him last night, and see if people like the direction I'm headed in...
Like I said, this was a quick hack, and a lot can/will change.
I also had a go at the "mate"/robot... chopped off the antenna, bumbed the contrast and colour balance around for a bit, and increased his size to fill the 128px area. Allan and I have chatted and have pretty much ruled out the typewriter and/or robot from the next icon ("clean slate"), but here it was anyway, warts n all:
I know there was plenty of discussion about color too... I originally thought that it'd be a great idea to go for the same blue that most people were used to with BBEdit... TM may have replaced BB on my dock, but I still go instinctively down to the dock looking for the blue blob that used to be BBEdit.
On the other hand, there's shitloads of blue on my dock already (safari, mail, finder, ichat, conversation, msn, iterm, indesign, etc.
Justin
I like it, but for god's sake don't make it blue!!! How about bright yellow background?
Actually I liked the other key with the brackets in the background a bit more :)
Glad it's not round also... have enough of these, mainly in blue!
On 25 Nov 2004, at 16:21, Justin French wrote:
I don't know if I'm allowed to say so, but justin did a mockup of a single key with a gear on it (as the glyph). And I do like the symbolic value of this (i.e. key = type text, gear = automation).
Ok, well I was going to do a "real" version before putting it out there, but since Allan blabbed, I might as well post the mock-up a knocked up for him last night, and see if people like the direction I'm headed in...
I know there was plenty of discussion about color too... I originally thought that it'd be a great idea to go for the same blue that most people were used to with BBEdit... TM may have replaced BB on my dock, but I still go instinctively down to the dock looking for the blue blob that used to be BBEdit.
On the other hand, there's shitloads of blue on my dock already (safari, mail, finder, ichat, conversation, msn, iterm, indesign, etc.
Justin French wrote:
Ok, well I was going to do a "real" version before putting it out there, but since Allan blabbed, I might as well post the mock-up a knocked up for him last night, and see if people like the direction I'm headed in...
*Really* digging the key, Justin. The simplicity of it is superb.
The colour is also good - the only other app I can think of that uses an 'ice' look is Quicksilver. The shape of the key makes your icon stand apart from that (in fact apart from most).
The key is also a good metaphor, both directly (editing text) but also indirectly. A keyboard key is pretty much the ultimate tool - it gets used extensively, performs its job perfectly and reliably, yet you never have to think about it or ever notice it's there. In use, a key is totally transparent. Just as a good text editor should be.
Can icons have varying degrees of alpha on OS X? It'd be cool if the key was slightly translucent :)
drew.
On 26/11/2004, at 5:56 AM, Drew McLellan wrote:
Justin French wrote:
Ok, well I was going to do a "real" version before putting it out there, but since Allan blabbed, I might as well post the mock-up a knocked up for him last night, and see if people like the direction I'm headed in...
*Really* digging the key, Justin. The simplicity of it is superb.
The colour is also good - the only other app I can think of that uses an 'ice' look is Quicksilver. The shape of the key makes your icon stand apart from that (in fact apart from most).
The key is also a good metaphor, both directly (editing text) but also indirectly. A keyboard key is pretty much the ultimate tool - it gets used extensively, performs its job perfectly and reliably, yet you never have to think about it or ever notice it's there. In use, a key is totally transparent. Just as a good text editor should be.
Can icons have varying degrees of alpha on OS X? It'd be cool if the key was slightly translucent :)
Drew, you should have started a career in design :P I think the alpha is doable, but not sure if it's a good idea... will do the cool version first, and then experiment. Thanks for the kind words!!
Justin
On 25. nov 2004, at 23:42, Justin French wrote:
On 26/11/2004, at 5:56 AM, Drew McLellan wrote:
Justin French wrote: Can icons have varying degrees of alpha on OS X? It'd be cool if the key was slightly translucent :)
[...] I think the alpha is doable, but not sure if it's a good idea... will do the cool version first, and then experiment. [...]
Yes, alpha is possible. The movie player VLC uses alpha for its movie icons (at least for .avi files, which is what I use it for).
OK, since everyone seems to be doing it, I might as well : )
I have thought about all the various proposals, studied my own dock, and come up with these really quick & dirty mock-ups:
Version 1: Among the best icons in my dock are the Adobe CS icon suite. They are clean, easy to distinguish, yet very detailed. So, I thought I'd start from there.
The 'concept' for this logo came from Justin's "key with cogwheel icon on", that I thought looked too much like iKey's for it to work. So I didn't like that one, but I like the concept of a keyboard key, with a 'gear/cogwheel' on it. I also like the 'Mate', when (s)he is away from the type writer.
The problems in the icon above are: -- the gear in the background of 1a is not obvious enough -- the 'mate' is too detailed to work in smaller sizes. Needs to be simplified, especially in the face, where the eyes & smile need to stand out clearly.
Version 2: A really dirty version of one of the previous icons - created by someone (sorry can't find your name now) - and I really liked the "text document" icon in the background, so I just added the 'mate', so that it became an obvious TextMate.
Neither of these icons works in a small size because of the look of the 'Mate', but think about the overall concepts instead, and think of a better 'Mate' that works in small sizes as well.
Hope the above ideas will in some small way further the cause.
Kind regards,
Mats
On 26 Nov 2004, at 15:04, Mats Persson wrote:
The 'concept' for this logo came from Justin's "key with cogwheel icon on", that I thought looked too much like iKey's for it to work. So I didn't like that one, but I like the concept of a keyboard key, with a 'gear/cogwheel' on it. I also like the 'Mate', when (s)he is away from the type writer.
I'd echo the comments about the key with cog idea - I've seen several apps using a single key as the icon.
I really like the second iteration of version 1 - the one with Matey and the braces. Admittedly, Matey could be given a makeover, but the idea is good and far cleaner than with the yellow typewriter.
Stuart
I'd echo the comments about the key with cog idea - I've seen several apps using a single key as the icon.
Someone had the great idea for a keyboard key with a cog symbol on it. I really like that idea. I've attached a mockup of how I sorta envision that idea. Again, I'm not an icon designer, this is just a rough mockup.
On Nov 26, 2004, at 19:50, jheyer wrote:
[...] I've attached a mockup of how I sorta envision that idea. Again, I'm not an icon designer, this is just a rough mockup.
Wow! I like it a lot :)
I think doing it as an illustration (instead of photo-realism) adds some personality which makes it less stiff/formal/boring.
But probably also makes it a bit harder to mix in with the standard Aqua icons.
But clearly Stuart was correct that there is a lot of artistic talent among the TextMate users! :)
It's really a joy to check the TextMate ML these days (a bigger joy than normal, that is! :) ), thanks to all of you who're contributing!
I've combined justin's with a demo copy of Can Combine Icons (that's why it says DEMO on the bottom)... It's not the best job... but you get the idea.
Version 2: A really dirty version of one of the previous icons - created by someone (sorry can't find your name now) - and I really liked the "text document" icon in the background, so I just added the 'mate', so that it became an obvious TextMate.
I really like this, and the notion of having a text document somewhere (this would also accord with Apple Icon Dogma too, I think), but maybe things could be simplified even further by beheading Goofy Robot Guy, and placing his severed head next to the text document instead of the pen? This sort of makes a kind of metaphorical sense, I think, since both the pen and Goofy Robot Guy represent tools with which the document can be edited. (And of course braces or some other representation of structured text could be added to the text document itself.)
Marcin
jheyer wrote:
I'm no icon designer but how about something simple like the attached .jpg?
Chris Messina wrote:
When I look at my dock, I want TM to stand out as much as Thunderbird and Firefox.
I looked at my dock yesterday while reading this thread, and the first thing that struck me was that the majority of the icons are mostly white, grey, blue and black.. so something with bright orange (like, oh, Firefox) or red should definitely stand out :-)
/Martin
How does this stand out? ;-)
On 11/24/04 5:47 PM, "M Spreij" nemo@mac.com wrote:
jheyer wrote:
I'm no icon designer but how about something simple like the attached .jpg?
Chris Messina wrote:
When I look at my dock, I want TM to stand out as much as Thunderbird and Firefox.
I looked at my dock yesterday while reading this thread, and the first thing that struck me was that the majority of the icons are mostly white, grey, blue and black.. so something with bright orange (like, oh, Firefox) or red should definitely stand out :-)
/Martin _______________________________________________ textmate mailing list textmate@lists.macromates.com http://lists.macromates.com/mailman/listinfo/textmate
On 24 Nov 2004, at 22:24, jheyer wrote:
I'm no icon designer but how about something simple like the attached .jpg?
<textmate_icon_simple.jpg>
+1 !
I like that. Textmate is simple but powerful. Just my 2 cents/pence/euros.
d
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