Hello Eirik, thank you for your reply and these lists... > [2] https://people.csail.mit.edu/ebakke/misc/netbeans-icons/prioritized.html > [3] https://people.csail.mit.edu/ebakke/misc/netbeans-icons/
...they are helpful. There was a question about the amount of NetBeans icons to redraw inside of OracleLabs and it is great there already is an answer. > Graphic designers on UpWork ... > ... crowdsourced effort ... > ... the ideal way to do this would be to crowdfund the effort ... Apache can certainly accept donations. If you guys organize a crowdfounding effort and use the money to draw icons that are then donated to Apache, then great! The effort would have to be supported by users of NetBeans, not developers - at least that's what I get from comments like the one by Matthias: > I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code > base working on source code and repetetive work on graphics. I also consider it unfair to pay a designer, but not pay me as an architect ;-) But if somebody wants to donate the money, then be it! > how to draw icons in > Illustrator Again, if somebody pays for that fun, be it. However as others noted, we are Apache and as such it would be better to adhere to open source style. No Adobe, please, try [Apache Draw](https://www.openoffice.org/) or at least [Inkscape](https://inkscape.org/). -jt PS: A note on design... > If many people are working on the effort, a single > > person will still ... > > cleaning them up to a consistent standard People used to claim that [design cannot be done in a committee](http:// wiki.apidesign.org/wiki/Teamwork). NetBeans is a proof that it can be done - one just need to sit down and [specify guidelines](http://wiki.apidesign.org/ wiki/API_Design_Checklist). > * Programming and graphic design are two different skillsets I believe there are common meta-design principles behind API design and UI/ icon design. As such guidelines (like https://material.io/design/guidelines-overview) could help. Of course, there is an overhead to it, but when the scale is large (there cannot be a single designer for all Android apps, right?), there is no other way to move forward anyway. Dne úterý 8. září 2020 19:14:41 CEST, Eirik Bakke napsal(a): > In my opinion, the ideal way to do this would be to crowdfund the effort and > have new icons be drawn by a single paid, professional icon designer. I'd > be interested in hearing your thoughts on this. > > In my experience, drawing an icon takes 30 minutes on average [1], after > getting up to speed. Graphic designers on UpWork are perhaps $30-60/hour > (we'd need to find someone who's qualified for this particular job). For an > initial effort, there are about 160 icons that should be converted [2]. > Ideally, we'd find someone to do it who could later be called upon to do > another 6-700 icons to cover most of the remaining interface, if the first > project is a success. > > As an alternative, for a crowdsourced effort, I'd be happy to do a > "training" session by Zoom to show contributors how to draw icons in > Illustrator according to the style guide described in NETBEANS-2617. I'm > swamped until February 2021, though... > > Some issues to consider: > * Programming and graphic design are two different skillsets. Programmers do > not always produce tasteful graphic designs. * In the long term, we'd want > to convert at least several hundred icons, maybe thousands [3]. This may be > beyond what is possible with a volunteer effort. * If too many different > people work on this, we will get a hodgepodge of different icon styles. * > Normally, cosmetic issues are not very important. But in this case, the > purpose of the effort is to make NetBeans look good, so aesthetics is > actually a primary concern. * From my own experience, it took about 4 hours > of icon-drawing work in Illustrator (which I already had some experience > with) before I was fully "up-to-speed" with designing new icons. If > multiple people are working on the icons, each person will have to go > through this learning curve. * You often end up copying and pasting shapes > between different icons. If many people are working on the effort, they > will end up redrawing shapes that others have already drawn. * There are > lots of little issues that contributors will get wrong--e.g. how vertices > are aligned to the pixel grid. A lot of familiarity with the drawing > software is needed. * If many people are working on the effort, a single > person will still end up having to go through all the Illustrator files and > cleaning them up to a consistent standard, naming scheme etc. For the > simpler icons (e.g. two rectangles), this takes up as much time as drawing > the icon itself. > > -- Eirik > [1] See > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/HiDPI+%28Retina%29+imp > rovements?preview=/110692909/110692926/vectorized.png [2] > https://people.csail.mit.edu/ebakke/misc/netbeans-icons/prioritized.html > [3] https://people.csail.mit.edu/ebakke/misc/netbeans-icons/ > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jaroslav Tulach <jaroslav.tul...@gmail.com> > Sent: Tuesday, September 8, 2020 4:29 AM > To: dev@netbeans.apache.org > Subject: Status of converting icons to SVG > > Hello everyone, hello Eirik. > > It is a while since the [support for SVG icons](https://github.com/apache/ > netbeans/commit/ > 51a01eb9cbfc6f342a1827d47f0b37e1b2f070a3#diff-721be4afbc5aed18d39b11702d02c > 9fd) landed into NetBeans code base. Is it used or is it just laying around? > > I do remember there was an attempt to start a community supported conversion > of the icons. What's the status of such conversion? Were some (at least > those visible in the toolbar by default) icons converted? > > Maybe we should ask guys that have a say in the wider community like Jirka > Kovalský, Geertjan, etc. to make some buzz around the conversion? Have an > "icon-a-hack-a-ton"? > > Last time I asked for help with reorganizing source files layout per > cluster, the community reacted quite well. A lot of people contributed. > Contributing icons shall be even easier and more fun, right? > > -jt --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@netbeans.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@netbeans.apache.org For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists
