RE: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Eirik Bakke]

> Do we have already considered solutions like Nucleo or Streamline, Icons8, 
> FluentIconsByMicrosoft?

See 
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/HiDPI+%28Retina%29+improvements
 :

"[Option 2:] Find replacement icons in an existing icon font library. Emilian 
Bold tried this approach and documented it at 
https://jaxenter.com/netbeans/netbeans-retina . Some manual work is included, 
but not as much as drawing new icons from scratch. The downside is that (1) 
quite a few NetBeans icons will have no suitable replacement in an existing 
font library, (2) icon font libraries yield monochromatic icons only, 
sacrificing the color of the old icons for an improvement in resolution, and 
(3) the style of new icons would appear mismatched next to old ones."

The approach we have now started (with 
https://github.com/apache/netbeans/pull/2387 ) is to start redrawing a subset 
of NetBeans icons in SVG using the existing bitmap icons as a base--keeping the 
basic shapes and color scheme with some modernizations, according to the style 
guide at https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NETBEANS-2617 .

-- Eirik

-Original Message-
From: David Schulz  
Sent: Friday, October 9, 2020 5:31 AM
To: Christian Lenz ; dev@netbeans.apache.org
Subject: RE: Status of converting icons to SVG

Thanks for adding me to the discussion @Christian Lenz, and hello into the 
void!  
 
Do we have already considered solutions like Nucleo or Streamline, Icons8, 
FluentIconsByMicrosoft?
We could use one of them as a base layer for new icons. If something isn't 
included, we could quickly build a new one based on the existing assets and 
individual needs. 

All the best,
Dave

--

uxactly GmbH | raiken.de
system design thinking 

Kurfürstendamm 28
10719 Berlin

Tel: 0174 933 85 36
Mail: da...@uxact.ly
Skype: rai...@live.de
 
LinkedIn | Xing

From: Christian Lenz
Sent: Donnerstag, 17. September 2020 13:07
To: dev@netbeans.apache.org; David Schulz
Subject: AW: Status of converting icons to SVG

I know a good UX and UI guy, it is david who created the logo for us. But yes I 
don’t think that he will do it for free. But to have a single designer for the 
Icons and the overall stuff is better than to have 10 designer for the same 
thing. https://www.raiken.studio/ 


Cheers

Chris


Von: Eirik Bakke
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 16. September 2020 19:16
An: dev@netbeans.apache.org
Betreff: RE: Status of converting icons to SVG

> I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code base 
> working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.

The problem is that if 10 different people are involved in the effort, each 
redrawing 70 icons (perhaps 40 hours of work), then there will be 10 different 
icon styles. Ideally there should be a single designer. But no single 
individual will volunteer to do, say, 300 hours of mostly repetitive work.

-- Eirik

-Original Message-
From: Matthias Bläsing 
Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2020 3:02 PM
To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
Subject: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

Hi,

I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code base 
working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.

I worked for a company where the graphics designers were the only ones using 
mac OS systems. Reasoning was, that their work could only be done on these 
machines. They were special somehow and I still don't grasp it. At that time 
other OSes could run their software and other OSes could be color calibrated.

I see this again: Now graphics designers need "their" software to work, the one 
available to all potential contributors is not good enough. Now graphics 
designers need to be paid, contrary to other contributors.

I will pull out of this discussion - I said what I had to say and it would be 
great if other people say what they think.

Greetings

Matthias

Am Dienstag, den 08.09.2020, 19:19 + schrieb Eirik Bakke:
> Yeah, the crowdfunding approach will only work if there's enthusiastic 
> support for it. Alternatively, there are benefits to having 4-5 
> committers "trained" in the art of making icons for the future. It's 
> worth going through the crowdfunding discussion once, though.
> 
> > What makes graphics design different from programming? Why not do a 
> > crowdfound efford to get feature X in NetBeans?
> 
> Main differences:
> * This is a task where, for stylistic and efficiency reasons, ideally 
> a single person should do the artwork for _all_ the icons. While I'm 
> sure we have several people here who could do a good job with 20-30 
> icons, none of us will have time to do 6-700 of them.
> * The task is repetitive and predictable. We can say to the designer, 
> "Here are 160 bitmap icons that we want SVG versions of. Here are 20 
> examples that we have already converted. You get paid when you have 
> finished the remaining 140 to the

RE: Status of converting icons to SVG

[David Schulz]

Thanks for adding me to the discussion @Christian Lenz, and hello into the 
void!  
 
Do we have already considered solutions like Nucleo or Streamline, Icons8, 
FluentIconsByMicrosoft?
We could use one of them as a base layer for new icons. If something isn't 
included, we could quickly build a new one based on the existing assets and 
individual needs. 

All the best, 
Dave

--

uxactly GmbH | raiken.de
system design thinking 

Kurfürstendamm 28
10719 Berlin

Tel: 0174 933 85 36
Mail: da...@uxact.ly
Skype: rai...@live.de
 
LinkedIn | Xing

From: Christian Lenz
Sent: Donnerstag, 17. September 2020 13:07
To: dev@netbeans.apache.org; David Schulz
Subject: AW: Status of converting icons to SVG

I know a good UX and UI guy, it is david who created the logo for us. But yes I 
don’t think that he will do it for free. But to have a single designer for the 
Icons and the overall stuff is better than to have 10 designer for the same 
thing. https://www.raiken.studio/ 


Cheers

Chris


Von: Eirik Bakke
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 16. September 2020 19:16
An: dev@netbeans.apache.org
Betreff: RE: Status of converting icons to SVG

> I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code base 
> working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.

The problem is that if 10 different people are involved in the effort, each 
redrawing 70 icons (perhaps 40 hours of work), then there will be 10 different 
icon styles. Ideally there should be a single designer. But no single 
individual will volunteer to do, say, 300 hours of mostly repetitive work.

-- Eirik

-Original Message-
From: Matthias Bläsing  
Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2020 3:02 PM
To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
Subject: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

Hi,

I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code base 
working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.

I worked for a company where the graphics designers were the only ones using 
mac OS systems. Reasoning was, that their work could only be done on these 
machines. They were special somehow and I still don't grasp it. At that time 
other OSes could run their software and other OSes could be color calibrated.

I see this again: Now graphics designers need "their" software to work, the one 
available to all potential contributors is not good enough. Now graphics 
designers need to be paid, contrary to other contributors.

I will pull out of this discussion - I said what I had to say and it would be 
great if other people say what they think.

Greetings

Matthias

Am Dienstag, den 08.09.2020, 19:19 + schrieb Eirik Bakke:
> Yeah, the crowdfunding approach will only work if there's enthusiastic 
> support for it. Alternatively, there are benefits to having 4-5 
> committers "trained" in the art of making icons for the future. It's 
> worth going through the crowdfunding discussion once, though.
> 
> > What makes graphics design different from programming? Why not do a 
> > crowdfound efford to get feature X in NetBeans?
> 
> Main differences:
> * This is a task where, for stylistic and efficiency reasons, ideally 
> a single person should do the artwork for _all_ the icons. While I'm 
> sure we have several people here who could do a good job with 20-30 
> icons, none of us will have time to do 6-700 of them.
> * The task is repetitive and predictable. We can say to the designer, 
> "Here are 160 bitmap icons that we want SVG versions of. Here are 20 
> examples that we have already converted. You get paid when you have 
> finished the remaining 140 to the same standard. If the project is a 
> success, we might later try to raise funds to hire you to convert 
> another 700 icons."
> 
> > With my PMC head on I'm not happy with that approach as it won't 
> > scale
> On the contrary--I think it's the volunteer effort that won't scale, 
> due to the sheer number of icons involved.
> 
> > when do we endorce a crowdfund efford, what happens if the work is 
> > not merged?
> We could start with a smaller number of icons. If that project is a 
> success, we can raise more funds for additional icons.
> 
> > Who will do the contract work, that will be required, as the work 
> > must be ours at the end and the author must not retain rights?
> 
> Here's how I imagine this would work:
> 1) One of us would have to organize this. That person sets up a 
> GoFundMe that says e.g. "Raise $X to hire a graphic designer to 
> retinafy the first batch of 160 NetBeans icons, to be open sourced 
> under the Apache License".
> 2) Once the funding goal is reached, the organizer goes on UpWork, 
> recruits a suitable designer, and commissions the work.
> 3) Once the designer delivers the work, per UpWork's agreement, the 
> organizer now holds the rights to it. As bound 

Re: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Tim Boudreau]

I have that a shot to - probably put more time into it than I should have.
The killer is identifying gradients in order to detect shapes that are
contiguous. Best results were simply finding a combination of channels in
one or another color space that got you the most contiguous pixels up to a
threshold.  There are some neat matrix multiplication tricks you can do to
get a gradient to cancel itself out, IF it is linear and IF you test
folding it on itself at close to the right angle.

Some icons got to a tolerable starting place for editing using a hacked
copy of potracej. But I wouldn’t say there’s much bang for the buck in
trying to automate it, it’s just fun to play with.

Re the issue of multiple designers, I think the trick does not have to be
one designer does it, but to have a style guide - a sort of shared
vocabulary of shapes, shadow thicknesses and angles, and color palettes.

Funny, I wish Imagine were closer to really usable - the thing I’m really
after with that is the thing I’ve wanted since I designed a lot of icons
for NetBeans in ’99 (most soon replaced when Sun mandated everything had to
have the Metal “flush 3D” look: I.e. an easy way to build up libraries for
reusable visual elements that are exactly the kind of vocabulary I’m
talking about.

-Tim

On Wed, Sep 16, 2020 at 1:00 PM Eirik Bakke  wrote:

> I've tried various automated approaches to vectorizing the icons--they
> don't produce very good results. Vectorizing algorithms don't work well for
> low-resolution images (16x16 in this case), and pixel art scaling
> algorithms (e.g. xBRZ or Kopf-Lischinski) don't work well for anti-aliased
> images (as our bitmap icons are).
>
>
>
> See for example https://people.csail.mit.edu/ebakke/misc/icons2xBRZ.html
> , which used the xBRZ algorithm.
>
>
>
> -- Eirik
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
>
> From: Eric Bresie 
>
> Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2020 10:20 AM
>
> To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
>
> Subject: Re: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG
>
>
>
> Was just looking around and saw this link [1]. Seems to favor Inkscape but
> there may also be ways to leverage gimp (another popular graphics tool -
> not specifically vector based but has some abilities to export with a
> little work).
>
>
>
> [1] https://askubuntu.com/questions/301540/export-image-as-svg-in-gimp
>
>
>
> Eric Bresie
>
> ebre...@gmail.com
>
>
>
> > On September 13, 2020 at 1:47:26 AM CDT, Jaroslav Tulach <
> jaroslav.tul...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > 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/

RE: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Eirik Bakke]

After discussions here and on https://github.com/apache/netbeans/pull/2376 , it 
seems the consensus was that people wanted all SVG icons drawn to date (by Pete 
Whelpton and myself) to be merged into the GitHub repo. I've created a PR for 
this here:

https://github.com/apache/netbeans/pull/2387

There are 34 unique icons here (copied around to around 192 locations in the 
repo), which have all been drawn according to the style guide at 
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NETBEANS-2617 , which I have updated with 
additional detail. An important goal of this style is that new SVG icons should 
look reasonably consistent next to the old bitmap icons, since we will have a 
mix of the two for many years.

If this PR is merged, then future icons should probably follow the same style 
guide. So this might be the best time to raise any stylistic objections.

I propose that future contributors can use either Adobe Illustrator or a free 
tool of their choice to generate SVG files, as long as new icons adhere to the 
style guide. Once merged, the SVG file itself becomes the official icon, and 
nobody should feel forced to update the original file from 
Illustrator/Inkscape/etc. This was always the case with the old bitmap icons.

-- Eirik

-Original Message-
From: Eirik Bakke  
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2020 3:46 PM
To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
Subject: RE: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

> Given that one of my degrees was in Graphic Design, I thought I would have a 
> look at the problem.
Excellent!!

> I am currently working on building some spreadsheets of all gif, png and svg 
> files in the netbeans app. This is very time consuming since none of my 
> search apps allows copy and paste to anything, so it is a manual problem, 
> currently at 464 of 1473 gif files. There are 2788 png files. By this I mean 
> references to files as there are many with the same name, but, not 
> necessarily the same graphic.

This I can help with. The SVG icon drawing effort is tracked here: 
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NETBEANS-2617

I have added a Google Sheet that shows the suggested prioritization of icons to 
draw, and current progress that I know of:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1U_pj-I3hk9Wj_7lvHcUDsZfFfBSyCkSGqBuv0qt_qXw/edit?usp=sharing

I have added you (and Pete Whelpton, who contributed some icons in the past) as 
an editor on this sheet so you can add notes if you wish.

> It would be of great value if someone with experience of these icons and 
> their production could provide feedback on my work etc.

Happy to help here. I am not a graphic designer, but I have made a suite of 
icons in my own NetBeans Platform application, so I've been through the 
technical process at least. I have maybe 100 hours of experience in Adobe 
Illustrator, but none in Inkscape. Feel free to use Inkscape if you prefer. 
(And while I know the use of Adobe Illustrator is controversial, I'm happy to 
reimburse a one-month license if you prefer it...)

-- Eirik

-Original Message-
From: Jeremy Cavanagh  
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2020 2:54 PM
To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
Subject: Fwd: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG


Apologies to all. I didn't send direct to my dev my mistake.

Jeremy

 Forwarded Message ----
Subject: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2020 23:14:32 +0200
From: Jeremy Cavanagh 
To: Eric Bresie 

Hi All,

Given that one of my degrees was in Graphic Design, I thought I would have a 
look at the problem.

I have started setting up my system to do this work. I have the Affinity Design 
suite, Inkscape, Gimp etc. on my system.

I am currently working on building some spreadsheets of all gif, png and svg 
files in the netbeans app. This is very time consuming since none of my search 
apps allows copy and paste to anything, so it is a manual problem, currently at 
464 of 1473 gif files. There are 2788 png files.
By this I mean references to files as there are many with the same name, but, 
not necessarily the same graphic.

I've also had a quick look at what is required to produce svg icons, not a big 
deal compared to the spreadsheet.

I have had a cursory look at some files and noticed that there are some 
inconsistencies which should be sorted out anyway.

With any luck and a following wind I should be able to supply some examples by 
the week after next. I shall do this work for my own benefit whatever you 
choose to do.

It would be of great value if someone with experience of these icons and their 
production could provide feedback on my work etc.

Comments from anyone would be gratefully accepted.

Regards

Jeremy

P.S., I also agree that paying for someone to do this doesn't really fit with 
the FOSS concept.

On 13/09/2020 16:20, Eric Bresie wrote:
> Was just looking around and saw this link [1]. Seems to favor Inkscape but 
> there may also be ways to leverage gimp (another popular graphics too

RE: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Eirik Bakke]

> Given that one of my degrees was in Graphic Design, I thought I would have a 
> look at the problem.
Excellent!!

> I am currently working on building some spreadsheets of all gif, png and svg 
> files in the netbeans app. This is very time consuming since none of my 
> search apps allows copy and paste to anything, so it is a manual problem, 
> currently at 464 of 1473 gif files. There are 2788 png files. By this I mean 
> references to files as there are many with the same name, but, not 
> necessarily the same graphic.

This I can help with. The SVG icon drawing effort is tracked here: 
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NETBEANS-2617

I have added a Google Sheet that shows the suggested prioritization of icons to 
draw, and current progress that I know of:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1U_pj-I3hk9Wj_7lvHcUDsZfFfBSyCkSGqBuv0qt_qXw/edit?usp=sharing

I have added you (and Pete Whelpton, who contributed some icons in the past) as 
an editor on this sheet so you can add notes if you wish.

> It would be of great value if someone with experience of these icons and 
> their production could provide feedback on my work etc.

Happy to help here. I am not a graphic designer, but I have made a suite of 
icons in my own NetBeans Platform application, so I've been through the 
technical process at least. I have maybe 100 hours of experience in Adobe 
Illustrator, but none in Inkscape. Feel free to use Inkscape if you prefer. 
(And while I know the use of Adobe Illustrator is controversial, I'm happy to 
reimburse a one-month license if you prefer it...)

-- Eirik

-Original Message-
From: Jeremy Cavanagh  
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2020 2:54 PM
To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
Subject: Fwd: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG


Apologies to all. I didn't send direct to my dev my mistake.

Jeremy

 Forwarded Message ----
Subject: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2020 23:14:32 +0200
From: Jeremy Cavanagh 
To: Eric Bresie 

Hi All,

Given that one of my degrees was in Graphic Design, I thought I would have a 
look at the problem.

I have started setting up my system to do this work. I have the Affinity Design 
suite, Inkscape, Gimp etc. on my system.

I am currently working on building some spreadsheets of all gif, png and svg 
files in the netbeans app. This is very time consuming since none of my search 
apps allows copy and paste to anything, so it is a manual problem, currently at 
464 of 1473 gif files. There are 2788 png files.
By this I mean references to files as there are many with the same name, but, 
not necessarily the same graphic.

I've also had a quick look at what is required to produce svg icons, not a big 
deal compared to the spreadsheet.

I have had a cursory look at some files and noticed that there are some 
inconsistencies which should be sorted out anyway.

With any luck and a following wind I should be able to supply some examples by 
the week after next. I shall do this work for my own benefit whatever you 
choose to do.

It would be of great value if someone with experience of these icons and their 
production could provide feedback on my work etc.

Comments from anyone would be gratefully accepted.

Regards

Jeremy

P.S., I also agree that paying for someone to do this doesn't really fit with 
the FOSS concept.

On 13/09/2020 16:20, Eric Bresie wrote:
> Was just looking around and saw this link [1]. Seems to favor Inkscape but 
> there may also be ways to leverage gimp (another popular graphics tool - not 
> specifically vector based but has some abilities to export with a little 
> work).
> 
> [1] https://askubuntu.com/questions/301540/export-image-as-svg-in-gimp
> 
> Eric Bresie
> ebre...@gmail.com
> 
>> On September 13, 2020 at 1:47:26 AM CDT, Jaroslav Tulach 
>>  wrote:
>> 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 
>&

RE: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Eirik Bakke]

Sorry, I was referring to the crowd that "is using vector drawing software for 
the first time". There are obviously also plenty of people who uses Inkscape 
and have used it professionally for many years.

-- Eirik

-Original Message-
From: Neil C Smith  
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2020 3:06 PM
To: dev 
Subject: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

On Thu, 17 Sep 2020, 19:00 Eirik Bakke,  wrote:

> Using Inkscape will be attractive to programmers (most of the people 
> on this list), and people who are using vector drawing software for 
> the first time. This crowd does _not_ tend to produce good-looking 
> graphics--after all, it's not what they do for a living.
>

This is completely untrue! It's like saying NetBeans is free so not used by 
professionals.

And yes I'm annoyed by that comment. I regularly attend Libre Graphics Meeting, 
and have met many of the Inkscape devs as well as professionals and studios 
doing fantastic work with libre graphics tools. A number of whom, groups I've 
already mentioned, are very committed to improving design in open source 
software.

Neil

>

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Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Neil C Smith]

On Thu, 17 Sep 2020, 19:00 Eirik Bakke,  wrote:

> Using Inkscape will be attractive to programmers (most of the people on
> this list), and people who are using vector drawing software for the first
> time. This crowd does _not_ tend to produce good-looking graphics--after
> all, it's not what they do for a living.
>

This is completely untrue! It's like saying NetBeans is free so not used by
professionals.

And yes I'm annoyed by that comment. I regularly attend Libre Graphics
Meeting, and have met many of the Inkscape devs as well as professionals
and studios doing fantastic work with libre graphics tools. A number of
whom, groups I've already mentioned, are very committed to improving design
in open source software.

Neil

>

RE: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Eirik Bakke]

As for the choice of drawing software, this will likely be decided by whoever 
steps up to do the first batch of 50-60 icons.

That said, the choice of tool is primarily a question of which crowd to attract.

Using Inkscape will be attractive to programmers (most of the people on this 
list), and people who are using vector drawing software for the first time. 
This crowd does _not_ tend to produce good-looking graphics--after all, it's 
not what they do for a living.

Using Adobe Illustrator will be attractive to people who already have 
Illustrator installed on their machine--meaning they probably already know how 
to use it, and are probably graphic design professionals. This is exactly the 
crowd we'd like contributions from here.

Mandating Inkscape will also actively exclude graphic design professionals, who 
will find it unattractive to switch tools, when they already spent years 
learning Adobe software.

-- Eirik

-Original Message-
From: Glenn Holmer  
Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2020 4:10 PM
To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
Subject: Status of converting icons to SVG

On 9/9/20 2:02 PM, Matthias Bläsing wrote:
> I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code 
> base working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.
> 
> I worked for a company where the graphics designers were the only ones 
> using mac OS systems.

So did I: I won't repeat the number, but I was told by our systems guys that it 
cost an outrageous amount of money for a new guy in that department to sit down 
on his first day of work.

> Reasoning was, that their work could only be done on these machines. 
> They were special somehow and I still don't grasp it. At that time 
> other OSes could run their software and other OSes could be color 
> calibrated.
> 
> I see this again: Now graphics designers need "their" software to 
> work, the one available to all potential contributors is not good 
> enough. Now graphics designers need to be paid, contrary to other 
> contributors.
> 
> I will pull out of this discussion - I said what I had to say and it 
> would be great if other people say what they think.

100% agree. If we need to expand the pool of contributors to people who work in 
/open source/ design, then let's try and do that. This is Apache, not Adobe.

--
Glenn Holmer (Linux registered user #16682) "After the vintage season came the 
aftermath -- and Cenbe."




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RE: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Eirik Bakke]

I left a comment--main point: I don't think we should be doing these 
one-by-one. This needs to be a batch effort. Otherwise icons will not end up 
looking consistent, and reviewing them will take as much time as drawing them.

-- Eirik

-Original Message-
From: Jaroslav Tulach  
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2020 11:32 AM
To: dev 
Subject: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

Hello Eirik,
since Saturday I was talking my son into redrawing some icons. Today he managed 
to convert two simple ones with InkScape. Let's try the classical PR review 
process on his icons: https://github.com/apache/netbeans/pull/2376
-jt


st 16. 9. 2020 v 19:16 odesílatel Eirik Bakke  napsal:

> > I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the 
> > code
> base working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.
>
> The problem is that if 10 different people are involved in the effort, 
> each redrawing 70 icons (perhaps 40 hours of work), then there will be 
> 10 different icon styles. Ideally there should be a single designer. 
> But no single individual will volunteer to do, say, 300 hours of 
> mostly repetitive work.
>
> -- Eirik
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Matthias Bläsing 
> Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2020 3:02 PM
> To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
> Subject: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG
>
> Hi,
>
> I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code 
> base working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.
>
> I worked for a company where the graphics designers were the only ones 
> using mac OS systems. Reasoning was, that their work could only be 
> done on these machines. They were special somehow and I still don't 
> grasp it. At that time other OSes could run their software and other 
> OSes could be color calibrated.
>
> I see this again: Now graphics designers need "their" software to 
> work, the one available to all potential contributors is not good 
> enough. Now graphics designers need to be paid, contrary to other 
> contributors.
>
> I will pull out of this discussion - I said what I had to say and it 
> would be great if other people say what they think.
>
> Greetings
>
> Matthias
>
> Am Dienstag, den 08.09.2020, 19:19 + schrieb Eirik Bakke:
> > Yeah, the crowdfunding approach will only work if there's 
> > enthusiastic support for it. Alternatively, there are benefits to 
> > having 4-5 committers "trained" in the art of making icons for the 
> > future. It's worth going through the crowdfunding discussion once, though.
> >
> > > What makes graphics design different from programming? Why not do 
> > > a crowdfound efford to get feature X in NetBeans?
> >
> > Main differences:
> > * This is a task where, for stylistic and efficiency reasons, 
> > ideally a single person should do the artwork for _all_ the icons. 
> > While I'm sure we have several people here who could do a good job 
> > with 20-30 icons, none of us will have time to do 6-700 of them.
> > * The task is repetitive and predictable. We can say to the 
> > designer, "Here are 160 bitmap icons that we want SVG versions of. 
> > Here are 20 examples that we have already converted. You get paid 
> > when you have finished the remaining 140 to the same standard. If 
> > the project is a success, we might later try to raise funds to hire 
> > you to convert another 700 icons."
> >
> > > With my PMC head on I'm not happy with that approach as it won't 
> > > scale
> > On the contrary--I think it's the volunteer effort that won't scale, 
> > due to the sheer number of icons involved.
> >
> > > when do we endorce a crowdfund efford, what happens if the work is 
> > > not merged?
> > We could start with a smaller number of icons. If that project is a 
> > success, we can raise more funds for additional icons.
> >
> > > Who will do the contract work, that will be required, as the work 
> > > must be ours at the end and the author must not retain rights?
> >
> > Here's how I imagine this would work:
> > 1) One of us would have to organize this. That person sets up a 
> > GoFundMe that says e.g. "Raise $X to hire a graphic designer to 
> > retinafy the first batch of 160 NetBeans icons, to be open sourced 
> > under the Apache License".
> > 2) Once the funding goal is reached, the organizer goes on UpWork, 
> > recruits a suitable designer, and commissions the work.
> > 3) Once the designer delivers the work, per UpWork's agreement, the 
> > organizer now holds the rights to it. As bound by the GoFundMe 
> > solicitation, 

Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Jaroslav Tulach]

Hello Eirik,
since Saturday I was talking my son into redrawing some icons. Today he
managed to convert two simple ones with InkScape. Let's try the classical
PR review process on his icons: https://github.com/apache/netbeans/pull/2376
-jt


st 16. 9. 2020 v 19:16 odesílatel Eirik Bakke  napsal:

> > I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code
> base working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.
>
> The problem is that if 10 different people are involved in the effort,
> each redrawing 70 icons (perhaps 40 hours of work), then there will be 10
> different icon styles. Ideally there should be a single designer. But no
> single individual will volunteer to do, say, 300 hours of mostly repetitive
> work.
>
> -- Eirik
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Matthias Bläsing 
> Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2020 3:02 PM
> To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
> Subject: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG
>
> Hi,
>
> I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code
> base working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.
>
> I worked for a company where the graphics designers were the only ones
> using mac OS systems. Reasoning was, that their work could only be done on
> these machines. They were special somehow and I still don't grasp it. At
> that time other OSes could run their software and other OSes could be color
> calibrated.
>
> I see this again: Now graphics designers need "their" software to work,
> the one available to all potential contributors is not good enough. Now
> graphics designers need to be paid, contrary to other contributors.
>
> I will pull out of this discussion - I said what I had to say and it would
> be great if other people say what they think.
>
> Greetings
>
> Matthias
>
> Am Dienstag, den 08.09.2020, 19:19 + schrieb Eirik Bakke:
> > Yeah, the crowdfunding approach will only work if there's enthusiastic
> > support for it. Alternatively, there are benefits to having 4-5
> > committers "trained" in the art of making icons for the future. It's
> > worth going through the crowdfunding discussion once, though.
> >
> > > What makes graphics design different from programming? Why not do a
> > > crowdfound efford to get feature X in NetBeans?
> >
> > Main differences:
> > * This is a task where, for stylistic and efficiency reasons, ideally
> > a single person should do the artwork for _all_ the icons. While I'm
> > sure we have several people here who could do a good job with 20-30
> > icons, none of us will have time to do 6-700 of them.
> > * The task is repetitive and predictable. We can say to the designer,
> > "Here are 160 bitmap icons that we want SVG versions of. Here are 20
> > examples that we have already converted. You get paid when you have
> > finished the remaining 140 to the same standard. If the project is a
> > success, we might later try to raise funds to hire you to convert
> > another 700 icons."
> >
> > > With my PMC head on I'm not happy with that approach as it won't
> > > scale
> > On the contrary--I think it's the volunteer effort that won't scale,
> > due to the sheer number of icons involved.
> >
> > > when do we endorce a crowdfund efford, what happens if the work is
> > > not merged?
> > We could start with a smaller number of icons. If that project is a
> > success, we can raise more funds for additional icons.
> >
> > > Who will do the contract work, that will be required, as the work
> > > must be ours at the end and the author must not retain rights?
> >
> > Here's how I imagine this would work:
> > 1) One of us would have to organize this. That person sets up a
> > GoFundMe that says e.g. "Raise $X to hire a graphic designer to
> > retinafy the first batch of 160 NetBeans icons, to be open sourced
> > under the Apache License".
> > 2) Once the funding goal is reached, the organizer goes on UpWork,
> > recruits a suitable designer, and commissions the work.
> > 3) Once the designer delivers the work, per UpWork's agreement, the
> > organizer now holds the rights to it. As bound by the GoFundMe
> > solicitation, the organizer immediately open sources it under the
> > Apache License. Now the icons are open source, whether or not they
> > actually get merged into NetBeans.
> > 4) At this point, we can hold a vote on whether the icons actually
> > look good enough to start integrating them into NetBeans. If this vote
> > passes, we start the regular PR process to move the icons into
> > NetBeans. If not, then the project is

AW: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Christian Lenz]

I know a good UX and UI guy, it is david who created the logo for us. But yes I 
don’t think that he will do it for free. But to have a single designer for the 
Icons and the overall stuff is better than to have 10 designer for the same 
thing. https://www.raiken.studio/ 


Cheers

Chris


Von: Eirik Bakke
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 16. September 2020 19:16
An: dev@netbeans.apache.org
Betreff: RE: Status of converting icons to SVG

> I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code base 
> working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.

The problem is that if 10 different people are involved in the effort, each 
redrawing 70 icons (perhaps 40 hours of work), then there will be 10 different 
icon styles. Ideally there should be a single designer. But no single 
individual will volunteer to do, say, 300 hours of mostly repetitive work.

-- Eirik

-Original Message-
From: Matthias Bläsing  
Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2020 3:02 PM
To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
Subject: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

Hi,

I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code base 
working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.

I worked for a company where the graphics designers were the only ones using 
mac OS systems. Reasoning was, that their work could only be done on these 
machines. They were special somehow and I still don't grasp it. At that time 
other OSes could run their software and other OSes could be color calibrated.

I see this again: Now graphics designers need "their" software to work, the one 
available to all potential contributors is not good enough. Now graphics 
designers need to be paid, contrary to other contributors.

I will pull out of this discussion - I said what I had to say and it would be 
great if other people say what they think.

Greetings

Matthias

Am Dienstag, den 08.09.2020, 19:19 + schrieb Eirik Bakke:
> Yeah, the crowdfunding approach will only work if there's enthusiastic 
> support for it. Alternatively, there are benefits to having 4-5 
> committers "trained" in the art of making icons for the future. It's 
> worth going through the crowdfunding discussion once, though.
> 
> > What makes graphics design different from programming? Why not do a 
> > crowdfound efford to get feature X in NetBeans?
> 
> Main differences:
> * This is a task where, for stylistic and efficiency reasons, ideally 
> a single person should do the artwork for _all_ the icons. While I'm 
> sure we have several people here who could do a good job with 20-30 
> icons, none of us will have time to do 6-700 of them.
> * The task is repetitive and predictable. We can say to the designer, 
> "Here are 160 bitmap icons that we want SVG versions of. Here are 20 
> examples that we have already converted. You get paid when you have 
> finished the remaining 140 to the same standard. If the project is a 
> success, we might later try to raise funds to hire you to convert 
> another 700 icons."
> 
> > With my PMC head on I'm not happy with that approach as it won't 
> > scale
> On the contrary--I think it's the volunteer effort that won't scale, 
> due to the sheer number of icons involved.
> 
> > when do we endorce a crowdfund efford, what happens if the work is 
> > not merged?
> We could start with a smaller number of icons. If that project is a 
> success, we can raise more funds for additional icons.
> 
> > Who will do the contract work, that will be required, as the work 
> > must be ours at the end and the author must not retain rights?
> 
> Here's how I imagine this would work:
> 1) One of us would have to organize this. That person sets up a 
> GoFundMe that says e.g. "Raise $X to hire a graphic designer to 
> retinafy the first batch of 160 NetBeans icons, to be open sourced 
> under the Apache License".
> 2) Once the funding goal is reached, the organizer goes on UpWork, 
> recruits a suitable designer, and commissions the work.
> 3) Once the designer delivers the work, per UpWork's agreement, the 
> organizer now holds the rights to it. As bound by the GoFundMe 
> solicitation, the organizer immediately open sources it under the 
> Apache License. Now the icons are open source, whether or not they 
> actually get merged into NetBeans.
> 4) At this point, we can hold a vote on whether the icons actually 
> look good enough to start integrating them into NetBeans. If this vote 
> passes, we start the regular PR process to move the icons into 
> NetBeans. If not, then the project is abandoned.
> 5) If the project is a success, we can repeat with more icons, using 
> the same designer.
> 
> > What happens when the raised money and the work done/merged does not 
> > match?
> Then the project has failed, 

RE: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Eirik Bakke]

> I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code base 
> working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.

The problem is that if 10 different people are involved in the effort, each 
redrawing 70 icons (perhaps 40 hours of work), then there will be 10 different 
icon styles. Ideally there should be a single designer. But no single 
individual will volunteer to do, say, 300 hours of mostly repetitive work.

-- Eirik

-Original Message-
From: Matthias Bläsing  
Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2020 3:02 PM
To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
Subject: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

Hi,

I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code base 
working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.

I worked for a company where the graphics designers were the only ones using 
mac OS systems. Reasoning was, that their work could only be done on these 
machines. They were special somehow and I still don't grasp it. At that time 
other OSes could run their software and other OSes could be color calibrated.

I see this again: Now graphics designers need "their" software to work, the one 
available to all potential contributors is not good enough. Now graphics 
designers need to be paid, contrary to other contributors.

I will pull out of this discussion - I said what I had to say and it would be 
great if other people say what they think.

Greetings

Matthias

Am Dienstag, den 08.09.2020, 19:19 + schrieb Eirik Bakke:
> Yeah, the crowdfunding approach will only work if there's enthusiastic 
> support for it. Alternatively, there are benefits to having 4-5 
> committers "trained" in the art of making icons for the future. It's 
> worth going through the crowdfunding discussion once, though.
> 
> > What makes graphics design different from programming? Why not do a 
> > crowdfound efford to get feature X in NetBeans?
> 
> Main differences:
> * This is a task where, for stylistic and efficiency reasons, ideally 
> a single person should do the artwork for _all_ the icons. While I'm 
> sure we have several people here who could do a good job with 20-30 
> icons, none of us will have time to do 6-700 of them.
> * The task is repetitive and predictable. We can say to the designer, 
> "Here are 160 bitmap icons that we want SVG versions of. Here are 20 
> examples that we have already converted. You get paid when you have 
> finished the remaining 140 to the same standard. If the project is a 
> success, we might later try to raise funds to hire you to convert 
> another 700 icons."
> 
> > With my PMC head on I'm not happy with that approach as it won't 
> > scale
> On the contrary--I think it's the volunteer effort that won't scale, 
> due to the sheer number of icons involved.
> 
> > when do we endorce a crowdfund efford, what happens if the work is 
> > not merged?
> We could start with a smaller number of icons. If that project is a 
> success, we can raise more funds for additional icons.
> 
> > Who will do the contract work, that will be required, as the work 
> > must be ours at the end and the author must not retain rights?
> 
> Here's how I imagine this would work:
> 1) One of us would have to organize this. That person sets up a 
> GoFundMe that says e.g. "Raise $X to hire a graphic designer to 
> retinafy the first batch of 160 NetBeans icons, to be open sourced 
> under the Apache License".
> 2) Once the funding goal is reached, the organizer goes on UpWork, 
> recruits a suitable designer, and commissions the work.
> 3) Once the designer delivers the work, per UpWork's agreement, the 
> organizer now holds the rights to it. As bound by the GoFundMe 
> solicitation, the organizer immediately open sources it under the 
> Apache License. Now the icons are open source, whether or not they 
> actually get merged into NetBeans.
> 4) At this point, we can hold a vote on whether the icons actually 
> look good enough to start integrating them into NetBeans. If this vote 
> passes, we start the regular PR process to move the icons into 
> NetBeans. If not, then the project is abandoned.
> 5) If the project is a success, we can repeat with more icons, using 
> the same designer.
> 
> > What happens when the raised money and the work done/merged does not 
> > match?
> Then the project has failed, though the icons are still open source.
> Since the person getting paid would be a third-party professional, 
> rather than one of us existing contributors, the transaction would be 
> "arms length", and no one should feel cheated.
> 
> > So if some outside entity wants to try it ok, but be prepared to 
> > fail, just as a PR is not guaranted to be merged.
> Yeah, exactly. But the chance of 

RE: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Eirik Bakke]

I've tried various automated approaches to vectorizing the icons--they don't 
produce very good results. Vectorizing algorithms don't work well for 
low-resolution images (16x16 in this case), and pixel art scaling algorithms 
(e.g. xBRZ or Kopf-Lischinski) don't work well for anti-aliased images (as our 
bitmap icons are).

See for example https://people.csail.mit.edu/ebakke/misc/icons2xBRZ.html , 
which used the xBRZ algorithm.

-- Eirik

-Original Message-
From: Eric Bresie  
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2020 10:20 AM
To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
Subject: Re: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

Was just looking around and saw this link [1]. Seems to favor Inkscape but 
there may also be ways to leverage gimp (another popular graphics tool - not 
specifically vector based but has some abilities to export with a little work).

[1] https://askubuntu.com/questions/301540/export-image-as-svg-in-gimp

Eric Bresie
ebre...@gmail.com

> On September 13, 2020 at 1:47:26 AM CDT, Jaroslav Tulach 
>  wrote:
> 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 wan

Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Jaroslav Tulach]

 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 
> 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




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Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Alessandro]

Hello all,
I support Erik’s plan.
Collaboration with https://opensourcedesign.net/ as pointed out by Neil
could be an alternative.

Kind Regards’
Alex

Il giorno mar 8 set 2020 alle 19:14 Eirik Bakke  ha
scritto:

> 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+improvements?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 
>
> 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-721be4afbc5aed18d39b11702d02c9fd)
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
*--*
*Alessandro Falappa*

RE: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Eirik Bakke]

There's also this thing (see email from Apache pasted below):

https://www.outreachy.org/communities/cfp/apache/
https://www.outreachy.org/communities/cfp/

"Interns work remotely with mentors from Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) 
communities on projects ranging from programming, user experience, 
documentation, illustration and graphical design, to data science."

The Apache email says: "We have funding secured for at least six interns"

Perhaps we could recruit a single design-oriented intern who would like to 
revamp the whole suite of NetBeans icons...

-- Eirik

-Original Message-
From: Matt Sicker  
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2020 2:00 PM
To: d...@community.apache.org; d...@diversity.apache.org
Subject: [ANN] Apache accepted to Outreachy; now seeking mentors and project 
proposals

Greetings,

The ASF is participating again in Outreachy, a program organized by the 
Software Freedom Conservancy for mentoring people who are under-represented in 
technology with internships working on open source software doing software 
development, documentation writing, data science work, design work, and other 
related tasks. Volunteers from these OSS communities sign up to mentor these 
interns by submitting project proposals [0][1][2]. For Apache, PMC members are 
all welcome to apply; others who wish to mentor for a PMC should seek lazy 
consensus from the specific PMC for that project to make sure the PMC has no 
objection to that individual mentoring for them. Mentors will also need to read 
and sign Outreachy's mentor agreement [3]. We have funding secured for at least 
six interns, but if we end up with more strong applicants than that, Outreachy 
sometimes allows additional interns from their general funding.

Important dates:

24 Sep 2020: ***last day to submit project proposals***
01 Oct 2020: contribution period begins for applicants
31 Oct 2020: contribution period ends
?? Nov 2020: intern selections
23 Nov 2020: interns announced
01 Dec 2020: internship begins
02 Mar 2020: internship ends

[0]: https://www.outreachy.org/communities/cfp/apache/
[1]: https://www.outreachy.org/mentor/mentor-faq/
[2]: https://www.outreachy.org/mentor/mentor-faq/#define-a-project
[3]: https://github.com/outreachy/website/blob/master/docs/mentor-agreement.md

--
Matt Sicker
Secretary, Apache Software Foundation
VP, Logging Services, ASF

-Original Message-
From: Glenn Holmer  
Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2020 4:10 PM
To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
Subject: Status of converting icons to SVG

On 9/9/20 2:02 PM, Matthias Bläsing wrote:
> I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code 
> base working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.
> 
> I worked for a company where the graphics designers were the only ones 
> using mac OS systems.

So did I: I won't repeat the number, but I was told by our systems guys that it 
cost an outrageous amount of money for a new guy in that department to sit down 
on his first day of work.

> Reasoning was, that their work could only be done on these machines. 
> They were special somehow and I still don't grasp it. At that time 
> other OSes could run their software and other OSes could be color 
> calibrated.
> 
> I see this again: Now graphics designers need "their" software to 
> work, the one available to all potential contributors is not good 
> enough. Now graphics designers need to be paid, contrary to other 
> contributors.
> 
> I will pull out of this discussion - I said what I had to say and it 
> would be great if other people say what they think.

100% agree. If we need to expand the pool of contributors to people who work in 
/open source/ design, then let's try and do that. This is Apache, not Adobe.

--
Glenn Holmer (Linux registered user #16682) "After the vintage season came the 
aftermath -- and Cenbe."

Status of converting icons to SVG

[Glenn Holmer]

On 9/9/20 2:02 PM, Matthias Bläsing wrote:

I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code
base working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.

I worked for a company where the graphics designers were the only ones
using mac OS systems.


So did I: I won't repeat the number, but I was told by our systems guys 
that it cost an outrageous amount of money for a new guy in that 
department to sit down on his first day of work.



Reasoning was, that their work could only be done
on these machines. They were special somehow and I still don't grasp
it. At that time other OSes could run their software and other OSes
could be color calibrated.

I see this again: Now graphics designers need "their" software to work,
the one available to all potential contributors is not good enough. Now
graphics designers need to be paid, contrary to other contributors.

I will pull out of this discussion - I said what I had to say and it
would be great if other people say what they think.


100% agree. If we need to expand the pool of contributors to people who 
work in /open source/ design, then let's try and do that. This is 
Apache, not Adobe.


--
Glenn Holmer (Linux registered user #16682)
"After the vintage season came the aftermath -- and Cenbe."




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For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit:
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Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Neil C Smith]

On Wed, 9 Sep 2020, 20:02 Matthias Bläsing, 
wrote:

> I will pull out of this discussion - I said what I had to say and it
> would be great if other people say what they think.
>

Well, I said it in the other thread, but in general I agree with your post
here. There are a few groups promoting open source design for open source
software, and I think we should try and engage / involve them. Designers
who understand and work with open source processes would be a positive IMO.

Neil

>

Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Matthias Bläsing]

Hi,

I still fail to see the difference between repetetive work on the code
base working on source code and repetetive work on graphics.

I worked for a company where the graphics designers were the only ones
using mac OS systems. Reasoning was, that their work could only be done
on these machines. They were special somehow and I still don't grasp
it. At that time other OSes could run their software and other OSes
could be color calibrated.

I see this again: Now graphics designers need "their" software to work,
the one available to all potential contributors is not good enough. Now
graphics designers need to be paid, contrary to other contributors.

I will pull out of this discussion - I said what I had to say and it
would be great if other people say what they think.

Greetings

Matthias

Am Dienstag, den 08.09.2020, 19:19 + schrieb Eirik Bakke:
> Yeah, the crowdfunding approach will only work if there's
> enthusiastic support for it. Alternatively, there are benefits to
> having 4-5 committers "trained" in the art of making icons for the
> future. It's worth going through the crowdfunding discussion once,
> though.
> 
> > What makes graphics design different from programming? Why not do a
> > crowdfound efford to get feature X in NetBeans?
> 
> Main differences:
> * This is a task where, for stylistic and efficiency reasons, ideally
> a single person should do the artwork for _all_ the icons. While I'm
> sure we have several people here who could do a good job with 20-30
> icons, none of us will have time to do 6-700 of them.
> * The task is repetitive and predictable. We can say to the designer,
> "Here are 160 bitmap icons that we want SVG versions of. Here are 20
> examples that we have already converted. You get paid when you have
> finished the remaining 140 to the same standard. If the project is a
> success, we might later try to raise funds to hire you to convert
> another 700 icons."
> 
> > With my PMC head on I'm not happy with that approach as it won't
> > scale
> On the contrary--I think it's the volunteer effort that won't scale,
> due to the sheer number of icons involved.
> 
> > when do we endorce a crowdfund efford, what happens if the work is
> > not merged?
> We could start with a smaller number of icons. If that project is a
> success, we can raise more funds for additional icons.
> 
> > Who will do the contract work, that will be required, as the work
> > must be ours at the end and the author must not retain rights?
> 
> Here's how I imagine this would work:
> 1) One of us would have to organize this. That person sets up a
> GoFundMe that says e.g. "Raise $X to hire a graphic designer to
> retinafy the first batch of 160 NetBeans icons, to be open sourced
> under the Apache License".
> 2) Once the funding goal is reached, the organizer goes on UpWork,
> recruits a suitable designer, and commissions the work.
> 3) Once the designer delivers the work, per UpWork's agreement, the
> organizer now holds the rights to it. As bound by the GoFundMe
> solicitation, the organizer immediately open sources it under the
> Apache License. Now the icons are open source, whether or not they
> actually get merged into NetBeans.
> 4) At this point, we can hold a vote on whether the icons actually
> look good enough to start integrating them into NetBeans. If this
> vote passes, we start the regular PR process to move the icons into
> NetBeans. If not, then the project is abandoned.
> 5) If the project is a success, we can repeat with more icons, using
> the same designer.
> 
> > What happens when the raised money and the work done/merged does
> > not match?
> Then the project has failed, though the icons are still open source.
> Since the person getting paid would be a third-party professional,
> rather than one of us existing contributors, the transaction would be
> "arms length", and no one should feel cheated.
> 
> > So if some outside entity wants to try it ok, but be prepared to
> > fail, just as a PR is not guaranted to be merged.
> Yeah, exactly. But the chance of success is higher if the effort is
> discussed here first and people actually like the approach.
> 
> -- Eirik
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Matthias Bläsing  
> Sent: Tuesday, September 8, 2020 1:26 PM
> To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
> Subject: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG
> 
> Hi,
> 
> yes - I know, I'm the bad guy, but in this case:
> 
> What makes graphics design different from programming? Why not do a
> crowdfound efford to get feature X in NetBeans?
> 
> With my PMC head on I'm not happy with that approach as it won't
> scale
> - when do we endorce a crowdfund efford, wh

RE: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Eirik Bakke]

Thanks for your efforts, Pete!

If we end up doing some kind of "icon hackathon", I'm happy to contribute a few 
one-month Illustrator licenses...

-- Eirik

-Original Message-
From: Pete Whelpton  
Sent: Tuesday, September 8, 2020 4:39 AM
To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
Subject: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

Hi Jaroslav et al,

The JIRA ticket is here: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NETBEANS-2617

In the comments, you'll see attached the .ai files for the icons I redrew as 
SVG.  The following NB modules are covered:

ide.editor.bookmarks.ai
ide.editor.macros.ai
ide.seperator.breadcrumbs.ai

these are on top of the icons Eirik had already converted.

Unfortunately, I left my job where I had access to Illustrator, and haven't 
fancied paying £30/month for it :(  I also 99% finished redrawing the 
ide.editor module, which contains many icons reused all over NB, so would have 
checked off a big chunk, but I stupidly left .ai file on my file storage in my 
old job, and the thought of redoing all of that work argh!

If I ever get access to AI again, I'll try and help out with some more.
Would love to see this finished :)


Pete

On Tue, Sep 8, 2020 at 9:29 AM Jaroslav Tulach 
wrote:

> Hello everyone, hello Eirik.
>
> It is a while since the [support for SVG 
> icons](https://github.com/apache/ netbeans/commit/ 
> <https://github.com/apache/netbeans/commit/>
> 51a01eb9cbfc6f342a1827d47f0b37e1b2f070a3#diff-721be4afbc5aed18d39b1170
> 2d02c9fd)
>
> 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
>
>
>
>

RE: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Eirik Bakke]

Yeah, the crowdfunding approach will only work if there's enthusiastic support 
for it. Alternatively, there are benefits to having 4-5 committers "trained" in 
the art of making icons for the future. It's worth going through the 
crowdfunding discussion once, though.

> What makes graphics design different from programming? Why not do a 
> crowdfound efford to get feature X in NetBeans?

Main differences:
* This is a task where, for stylistic and efficiency reasons, ideally a single 
person should do the artwork for _all_ the icons. While I'm sure we have 
several people here who could do a good job with 20-30 icons, none of us will 
have time to do 6-700 of them.
* The task is repetitive and predictable. We can say to the designer, "Here are 
160 bitmap icons that we want SVG versions of. Here are 20 examples that we 
have already converted. You get paid when you have finished the remaining 140 
to the same standard. If the project is a success, we might later try to raise 
funds to hire you to convert another 700 icons."

> With my PMC head on I'm not happy with that approach as it won't scale
On the contrary--I think it's the volunteer effort that won't scale, due to the 
sheer number of icons involved.

> when do we endorce a crowdfund efford, what happens if the work is not merged?
We could start with a smaller number of icons. If that project is a success, we 
can raise more funds for additional icons.

> Who will do the contract work, that will be required, as the work must be 
> ours at the end and the author must not retain rights?

Here's how I imagine this would work:
1) One of us would have to organize this. That person sets up a GoFundMe that 
says e.g. "Raise $X to hire a graphic designer to retinafy the first batch of 
160 NetBeans icons, to be open sourced under the Apache License".
2) Once the funding goal is reached, the organizer goes on UpWork, recruits a 
suitable designer, and commissions the work.
3) Once the designer delivers the work, per UpWork's agreement, the organizer 
now holds the rights to it. As bound by the GoFundMe solicitation, the 
organizer immediately open sources it under the Apache License. Now the icons 
are open source, whether or not they actually get merged into NetBeans.
4) At this point, we can hold a vote on whether the icons actually look good 
enough to start integrating them into NetBeans. If this vote passes, we start 
the regular PR process to move the icons into NetBeans. If not, then the 
project is abandoned.
5) If the project is a success, we can repeat with more icons, using the same 
designer.

> What happens when the raised money and the work done/merged does not match?
Then the project has failed, though the icons are still open source. Since the 
person getting paid would be a third-party professional, rather than one of us 
existing contributors, the transaction would be "arms length", and no one 
should feel cheated.

> So if some outside entity wants to try it ok, but be prepared to fail, just 
> as a PR is not guaranted to be merged.
Yeah, exactly. But the chance of success is higher if the effort is discussed 
here first and people actually like the approach.

-- Eirik

-Original Message-
From: Matthias Bläsing  
Sent: Tuesday, September 8, 2020 1:26 PM
To: dev@netbeans.apache.org
Subject: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

Hi,

yes - I know, I'm the bad guy, but in this case:

What makes graphics design different from programming? Why not do a crowdfound 
efford to get feature X in NetBeans?

With my PMC head on I'm not happy with that approach as it won't scale
- when do we endorce a crowdfund efford, what happens if the work is not 
merged? Who will do the contract work, that will be required, as the work must 
be ours at the end and the author must not retain rights?
What happens when the raised money and the work done/merged does not match?

So if some outside entity wants to try it ok, but be prepared to fail, just as 
a PR is not guaranted to be merged.

Greetings

Matthias



Am Dienstag, den 08.09.2020, 17:14 + schrieb Eirik Bakke:
> 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 
> "trainin

Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Matthias Bläsing]

Hi,

yes - I know, I'm the bad guy, but in this case:

What makes graphics design different from programming? Why not do a
crowdfound efford to get feature X in NetBeans?

With my PMC head on I'm not happy with that approach as it won't scale
- when do we endorce a crowdfund efford, what happens if the work is
not merged? Who will do the contract work, that will be required, as
the work must be ours at the end and the author must not retain rights?
What happens when the raised money and the work done/merged does not
match?

So if some outside entity wants to try it ok, but be prepared to fail,
just as a PR is not guaranted to be merged.

Greetings

Matthias



Am Dienstag, den 08.09.2020, 17:14 + schrieb Eirik Bakke:
> 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+improvements?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  
> 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-
> 721be4afbc5aed18d39b11702d02c9fd)
> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --

RE: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Eirik Bakke]

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+improvements?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  
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-721be4afbc5aed18d39b11702d02c9fd)
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







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Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Neil C Smith]

On Tue, 8 Sep 2020 at 12:51, John  wrote:
> Have you considered inkscape? ( https://inkscape.org )

I'm a great fan of Inkscape, although it should be noted that on
certain systems NetBeans will crash it! :-)  Can't run both together
here.

Best wishes,

Neil

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Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Pete Whelpton]

I've tried both Inkscape and Affinity - both are great pieces of software,
but not ideal for this job, as the artboard functionality of AI is great to
be able to look at all icons in a NB module at a time to ensure
consistent design (and tracing is much easier/intuitive in AI).

TBH, there is far too much work here for just Eirik and I - what Jaroslav
suggests, a draw-athon involving more community members would be a great
idea.  Many NB icons are duplicated across modules, so if we got enough
people, and each person took a module containing a lot of icons that are
recycled, we could blitz a big chunk of this work...


P

On Tue, Sep 8, 2020 at 12:51 PM John  wrote:

> Hey Pete,
>
>
> Have you considered inkscape? ( https://inkscape.org )
>
> I've not used Illustrator, so have no basis for comparison, but have
> done quite a lot of simple designs with inkscape and found it useful.
>
>
> Have Fun
>
> jostle
>
>
> On 2020/09/08 08:38:36, Pete Whelpton  wrote:
>  > Hi Jaroslav et al,>
>  >
>  > The JIRA ticket is here:
> https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NETBEANS-2617>
>  >
>  > In the comments, you'll see attached the .ai files for the icons I
> redrew>
>  > as SVG. The following NB modules are covered:>
>  >
>  > ide.editor.bookmarks.ai>
>  > ide.editor.macros.ai>
>  > ide.seperator.breadcrumbs.ai>
>  >
>  > these are on top of the icons Eirik had already converted.>
>  >
>  > Unfortunately, I left my job where I had access to Illustrator, and
> haven't>
>  > fancied paying £30/month for it :( I also 99% finished redrawing the>
>  > ide.editor module, which contains many icons reused all over NB, so
> would>
>  > have checked off a big chunk, but I stupidly left .ai file on my file>
>  > storage in my old job, and the thought of redoing all of that
> work argh!>
>  >
>  > If I ever get access to AI again, I'll try and help out with some more.>
>  > Would love to see this finished :)>
>  >
>  >
>  > Pete>
>  >
>  > On Tue, Sep 8, 2020 at 9:29 AM Jaroslav Tulach >
>  > wrote:>
>  >
>  > > Hello everyone, hello Eirik.>
>  > >>
>  > > It is a while since the [support for SVG
> icons](https://github.com/apache/>
>  > > netbeans/commit/ >
>  > >
> 51a01eb9cbfc6f342a1827d47f0b37e1b2f070a3#diff-721be4afbc5aed18d39b11702d02c9fd)>
>
>
>  > >>
>  > > 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>
>  > >>
>  > >>
>  > >>
>  > >>
>  >
>
> -
> 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
>
>
>
>

Re: Status of converting icons to SVG

[Pete Whelpton]

Hi Jaroslav et al,

The JIRA ticket is here: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NETBEANS-2617

In the comments, you'll see attached the .ai files for the icons I redrew
as SVG.  The following NB modules are covered:

ide.editor.bookmarks.ai
ide.editor.macros.ai
ide.seperator.breadcrumbs.ai

these are on top of the icons Eirik had already converted.

Unfortunately, I left my job where I had access to Illustrator, and haven't
fancied paying £30/month for it :(  I also 99% finished redrawing the
ide.editor module, which contains many icons reused all over NB, so would
have checked off a big chunk, but I stupidly left .ai file on my file
storage in my old job, and the thought of redoing all of that work argh!

If I ever get access to AI again, I'll try and help out with some more.
Would love to see this finished :)


Pete

On Tue, Sep 8, 2020 at 9:29 AM Jaroslav Tulach 
wrote:

> Hello everyone, hello Eirik.
>
> It is a while since the [support for SVG icons](https://github.com/apache/
> netbeans/commit/ 
> 51a01eb9cbfc6f342a1827d47f0b37e1b2f070a3#diff-721be4afbc5aed18d39b11702d02c9fd)
>
> 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
>
>
>
>

Status of converting icons to SVG

[Jaroslav Tulach]

Hello everyone, hello Eirik.

It is a while since the [support for SVG icons](https://github.com/apache/
netbeans/commit/
51a01eb9cbfc6f342a1827d47f0b37e1b2f070a3#diff-721be4afbc5aed18d39b11702d02c9fd) 
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







-
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For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@netbeans.apache.org

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