Affinity app icons

[Morgandy]

Hi

I love your Affinity products. I have a problem picking them from my laptop toolbar. Which is Photo? etc.

Any chance of changing the icons to include a "D" on the Design App, "P" on the Photo App and a PEN on the Publisher App.

I usually discover that if i have a problem lots of others have the same problem. Maybe it is worth your consideration.

Thanks

Best regards

Morgan

[Pšenda]

3 hours ago, Morgandy said:

Any chance of changing the icons to include a "D" on the Design App, "P" on the Photo App and a PEN on the Publisher App.

I usually discover that if i have a problem lots of others have the same problem.

"PEN" for APublisher? Why? 

If you have these problems, and it is quite obvious that Serif "never" can meet all the often conflicting requirements (see numerous contributions, suggestions and complaints), then it is best to create your own icons, completely according to your ideas.

 

[konstantnnn]

Aren’t the completely different colors in the icons enough???

[wonderings]

On 3/14/2021 at 7:59 PM, konstantnnn said:

Aren’t the completely different colors in the icons enough???

they are, not sure what the issue is. I can see maybe forgetting if you buy all 3 at once but it should not take long for the mind to associat the 3 colours with the 3 apps. 

[Pšenda]

36 minutes ago, wonderings said:

for the mind to associated the 3 colours with the 3 apps. 

For me, application colors are far more clearer and legible, than any unreadable letters/symbols on the miniature icons.

[Guest]

On 3/11/2021 at 12:30 PM, Morgandy said:

Any chance of changing the icons to include a "D" on the Design App, "P" on the Photo App and a PEN on the Publisher App.

You can accomplish this yourself (on Windows and macOS), and use any icon that works best for you. You could even use any Affinity app you wish to make the new icon!

I often change app icons (it's significantly easier on macOS) to be either more recognizable, more inline with the operating system look and feel, or simply not to be so ugly.

[wonderings]

18 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

For me, application colors are far more clearer and legible, than any unreadable letters/symbols on the miniature icons.

Exactly. The brain processes this far quicker then the icon image details. Would be a horrible if they were all the same colour but had slight variations to the graphics, now that would be confusing. 

They did follow a similar colour scheme to Adobe but moved the colours around which in turns makes it a little confusing when I quickly want to select an Affinity app.  

[Joachim_L]

33 minutes ago, wonderings said:

now that would be confusing

What I find confusing is the fact, that one cannot distinguish the panels. Having all three applications open, often enough I click the "wrong" panel resp. the panel of the "wrong" application. A small coloured overline for the panels would help me.

[wonderings]

2 hours ago, Joachim_L said:

What I find confusing is the fact, that one cannot distinguish the panels. Having all three applications open, often enough I click the "wrong" panel resp. the panel of the "wrong" application. A small coloured overline for the panels would help me.

Can you adjust the UI colour at least on all 3? I work on a Mac and they have this nice feature called "Spaces". It is basically like having a multi monitor setup with one screen. I have Indesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and Mail all in their own space. So I move between spaces depending on what app I need to work on. It never gets cluttered as they have their own space. Not sure if there is anything similar for Windows, I find it very helpful. 

[loukash]

8 hours ago, Pšenda said:

for me, application colors are far more clearer and legible

… unless one has been brainwashed by Schmadobe's color coding of the past 15 years, where orange = vector, blue = pixel, and wine red = layout…
Especially if one still has to keep them side by side in the dock:

[loukash]

2 hours ago, wonderings said:

on a Mac and they have this nice feature called "Spaces"

Spaces are brilliant, I've been using them ever since they appeared on MacOS, but even before that they were available as a 3rd party "hack". Originally you could also arrange them in rows which was even better. But it likely confused the "consumers" so Apple removed that option. On the other hand, eventually Apple implemented independent desktop backgrounds, so now you can easily "color code" which desktop/space you're in:

For design apps, I'm using Desktop 2 with Solid Gray Medium (on El Capitan: System Preferences > Desktop > Apple > Solid Colors)

[Old Bruce]

22 minutes ago, loukash said:

Spaces are brilliant, I've been using them ever since they appeared on MacOS,

When they were first introduced I remember thinking that they were moronic and useless. Then I saw someone actually using them and I went and set them up. Now I wouldn't work any other way.

Regarding Icons, if we are honest most icons are just pointless as far as their designs conveying anything are concerned.

[Pšenda]

3 hours ago, wonderings said:

Not sure if there is anything similar for Windows,

In Win10, there are virtual Desktops that can be easily switched between. Each application can have one whole area (desktop + task bar) reserved, so its panels/studios will not be mixed or confused in any way.

[loukash]

19 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Now I wouldn't work any other way.

I'm more worried about another helper app that I can't be without, as it doesn't exist anymore, and it won't run on Catalina and beyond.
DockSpaces

In fact, this was one of the Spaces "hacks" before there were Spaces, but I've been always using it for multiple Docks:

… and that's the key how to avoid app icons overload in the Dock.
And no, Launchpad is not a replacement.

Its principle is totally simple: it keeps a copy of com.apple.dock.plist for each Dock. If you switch to another dock, it simply replaces the currently active ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist and relaunches the Dock. In fact, it's so straightforward that it might be possible to rebuild it as an Automator app. (Sadly, I can't code in ObjC or Swift, even though I tried…)