Hey all, another update!
This time I focussed mainly on the icons for the Sketcher workspace
- preview.png (137.16 KiB) Viewed 5425 times
——— You can download the new .rcc file here ———
Note: Some icons don't seem to be loaded/detected properly ... I haven't figured out why though yet.
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Thanks @1D_Inc, @czinehuba @chrisb for the feedback, I tried to encorporate it
And sorry for not getting back to you @balrobs – the reason was simply that I didn't have all ready yet at the last time.
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Here is the comparison between the current icons and the new ones:
- comparison.png (351.13 KiB) Viewed 5425 times
I wanted to highlight a few things:
- (Construction lines) The current icons are blue, because in drawings that is default construction line color. I switched to a dotted style to make it easier to switch from or to FreeCAD (in other tools commonly is dotted) — it also feels a bit more intuitive.
- (Driven constraints) I reused the dotted approach there too — it just felt natural.
- (A) I added the construction lines of the spline points, I believe this helps understand the principle of how splines work better.
- (B) The hyperbolic and parabolic icons are only partially drawn to indicate that this is possible. The full ellipsoid shape is indicated which should make it easier to understand the tool.
- (C) I worked more with arrows because I liked that in OnShape and it's also how they actually look like in FreeCAD.
- (D) I found lock to be a bit confusing, because it normally refers to disabling something. I think this new approach is more self-explaining while keeping the lock.
- (E & I) To have toggles inside a menu bar is not a very common functionality, but I tried to make it a bit clearer by adding a toggle to the icon too. I also simplified the curvature comb a bit and tried to make the other icons to be a bit less abstract.
- (F) Those two were really hard for me to understand, so hopefully those are a bit more intuitive now
- (G) The current ones didn't look much like copying from another sketch – I hope the new ones do. I also try to keep a consistent icon for sketches/drawings.
- (H) Just tried to add some consistency and make especially confirm and edit a sketch more intuitive.
Opinions are very welcome
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I have two questions where it would be cool to have some help/opinions:
(1) Icon variations such as Sketcher_Element_Arc_StartingPoint:
I saw that e.g. for Sketcher_Element_Arc there is a variant for _StartingPoint, _MidPoint, _EndPoint and _Edge. However I haven't seen those variants used inside the interface. Where are such variants used?
(2) Publishing this icon set:
I am thinking of publishing the icons
also separately from FreeCAD since many of the icons could be useful in other projects too.
One question is what you think of this?
And the second question is regarding a license: I was thinking about picking CC0, because as a designer it can be hard to incorporate the license, especially for when you just need e.g. one icon for a certain project. So I'd rather make it more accessible even if it means I lose all ownership.
Any experience/thoughts/opinions on this?
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Next steps:
I noticed that sometimes the contrast is not that great and that lines get very thin. But more importantly I wanted to get some consistency in how the colors and style is chosen (which are the main elements; which ones get generated/selected/set; etc.).