Re: New Emacs Icon and Tango

[Ken Manheimer]

On 10/22/05, Lars Hansen <address@hidden> wrote:
> Rodney Dawes wrote:
> > On the subject of branding through, I am not quite sure what the best
> > way to do that is. I like the Gnu-horns E on the notepad. I'm not sure
> > that a notepad is the best metaphor for Emacs though, as it does so much
> > more than just edit text. The branding should be strong though, and
> > preferrably be done without having the text "Emacs" in the icon itself.
> > If the icon should say anything, it should be "this is Emacs, a very
> > powerful IDE and text processing solution", I think.

please, lets not get overly fancy!  emacs is *most recognizably* an
editor, lets use that simple, conveyable concept as the mnemonic.

as it says in the Emacs Widget Library guide
(http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraham/custom/widget.html), emacs provides
an "incredible powerful text 'widget'" (sic).  those of us who know it
well know it provides more than that - but also recognize it as a text
editor (foremost, for many if not most of us).  those who don't know
about it are best acquainted with it first as a text editor. 
stressing the other stuff, early on, makes it harder to approach, not
easier.  it *belongs* and is easily findable on, for example, the
cygwin Setup tool menu in editors, and it should have an icon that
reflects this chief purpose.

> I agree. I like the looks of the notepad, but IMHO it resembles the icon
> of notepad.exe on MS Windows to much. notepad.exe is no more than a
> notepad, but Emacs is much more. But which metaphor is better?
> Maybe this: Emacs is sometimes referred to as
>
>    "The Swiss Army Knife of Editors"
>
> since it has a tool for every need. But I don't know if it would do as
> an icon.

people mostly don't go looking for a tool that does everything, they
go looking for a tool that does some particular thing.  an icon that
says "this does everything" is not useful as an introducer, and i
think it is a poor reminder - a poor mnemonic.

(now, i happen to be one of those people who uses emacs for my shell,
development and compilation environment, outlining, file management,
encryption, and whatever else it does well enough.  i leverage my
expertise.  the fact that it's maintained a text-oriented focus,
howeer, has served all these purposes in surprising and unprecedented
ways.  i have no doubt editing is central to its purpose and power.)

the kitchen sink and swiss army knife are funny, but it's an inside
joke.  an icon should be simple, visually and conceptually.  i don't
know of another simple symbol for an editor besides a notepad (maybe
we should call the image a "notebook"), so i'm comfortable with that
(despite microsoft's penchent for co-opting concepts with generically
named tools).

ken
address@hidden

(PS i seem to recall that andrew made a 16x16 png which has the
notebook binding rings on top - i think it should go on lennart's page
with andrews other ones, instead of the older version, but i don't
think it's there yet...)