[TxMt] TextMate Icon proposal - Anime icon

[Justin French]

On 29/11/2004, at 5:19 AM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:

> I envision the finished icon as mostly white. The "document" part of 
> my icon idea is two sheets of white unlined paper, at the familiar 
> angle (see TextEdit), which look like they could be homework 
> assignments or test papers. I envision that text is hand-written on 
> the papers -- but it should be made clear from the indentation and 
> varying line length and such that it is programming code, not 
> paragraphs of text.
>
> There should be red markings on it, indicating where corrections have 
> been made, and possibly a red hand-written and circled A at the top of 
> the page, indicating the grade this assignment has theoretically 
> received, or just a checkmark or some other indication that the 
> document is now A-OK, thanks to TextMate.

See, the underlined hand written paper is exactly NOT what TextMate 
does.  Until recently, it didn't even print!!  If anything, a 
terminal-style window would be much more appropriate.

Putting that aside, no one really looks at their icons at full size, 
right?  So making sure the text looks like code instead of text seems 
like a lot of work for nothing.  Hardly anyone would ever see it or 
notice it's "cleverness".

TextMate doesn't help you write school assignments at all (unless 
you're in IT, in which case you'd never have the teacher grade it with 
a red marker).

I don't mean to "slam" your ideas on your first post, but I 
*personally* don't agree with the direction you're headed in, 
particularly the idea of paper-based documents.


> The "tool" part is where I think we can depart from the 
> recommendations a bit, given the state of other Apple icons. I can't 
> get along with the current robot, so I suggest a happy anime cartoon 
> boy. In anime, as in other cartoons, characters often have superpowers 
> or hidden abilities, and this guy's power therefore is sprucing up 
> your document quickly and efficiently without getting in your way. 
> He's standing proudly to the right side of the papers, legs slightly 
> apart, arms folded in front of him, a red marker clearly visible in 
> his hand, and with a stereotypical spiky outrageously-colored anime 
> hairstyle, possibly partially hidden by a backwards-turned baseball 
> cap. I see him wearing long white pants and a white shirt or 
> sweatshirt (and if only MacroMates had a logo, it could be printed on 
> the sweatshirt). I see the hair as being the icon's primary source of 
> color, but this could prove to be too little color, so the shirt 
> and/or pants may have to get some color too. The color of the 
> SubEthaEdit icon changed from blue to green with the 2.0 release, and 
> iTunes' icon has changed color with every major version as well; the 
> hair and/or clothing colors of this icon could also be changed across 
> TextMate versions if desired.

I really like the concept here of something with hidden superpowers -- 
that's a great fit for the analogy of what TM can do, but seriously, 
far too much detail -- remember this icon has to work at anywhere 
between 16 px and 128 px... it's not being printed on hi-res posters 
and t-shirts.

Look at the icons on your dock.  None of them have anywhere near that 
kind of detail, and with good reason.


Again, this is all in my humble opinion, but there's a reason why the 
iTunes logo works... it's simple and clear.  Same with every other 
successful icon.


Justin