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Get correct document icons here


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I am used to instantly identify the main layout documents in each project by its icon. That's why I do not save Publisher or Designer files with thumbnail preview. I only do that with images/photos.

But as Affinity still does not get the icons right (their doc icons are identical to the app icon, which is against GUI standards) I have created correct icons for Publisher and Designer myself. Attached, you find the icon files for Mac and infos for installation. I don't know if this works the same on Win.

It works so far that a correct doc icon shows inside folder lists on Mac. But unfortunately still not on the desktop or in symbol view – I have no clue why this is, maybe someone from Affinity can shad a light on this?

Thomas

af doc icons.zip

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@Thomahawk, you may already know this but in all recent versions of the Mac OS (maybe even as far back as Tiger?), in Finder you can set View Options (via CMD+J) on a per window & on a per view (icon, list, etc.) basis. One of those options is "Show Icon Preview." This includes the desktop folder, but of course on the Desktop screen it only has the Icon view. If that item is ticked and the app generates document previews, a preview of the file's appearance will be shown. If not, whatever the app specifies for its document files (if anything) will be shown instead.

For Designer, that is the DesignerDocIcon.icns file, specified in Designer's info.plist file. Its icons are very similar to those in the DesignerAppIcon.icns file (the app icon), but they are not identical. For example, for the 512x512 ic14 icon format, below is the app icon on the left & the doc icon on the right.

182628985_appiconic14.jpg.c2ef3715b0b1f1790e3d798fc875339a.jpg 520693203_dociconic14.jpg.4d62f3a66eff714842f46496289e0dab.jpg

As you can see, the app icon has an etched, 3D appearance while the doc icon is flat.

So I suppose if you don't like Serif's choice for document icons there is nothing wrong with substituting more 'old school' styled ones with dog-ears, but there is also nothing technically wrong with what Serif has chosen.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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This are general design rules necessary for a good GUI, ddeveloped over the past 30 years, to be logical and intuitively accessible. It has nothing to do with personal taste. To toss that aside by making document icons that look like application icons is indeed technically wrong, because it makes things unnecessary disorienting and incomprehensible.

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On 7/8/2019 at 11:22 PM, Thomahawk said:

I have created correct icons for Publisher and Designer myself.

Designer Icon is flat, Publisher icon is 3D - it is correct?

image.png.28f1429f616c94df25cdaf81f70a0f57.png

Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.4.0.2301
Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155.
Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155.
Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130.

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This would work mostly for macOS only since it is a little tricky to convert ICNS to ICO.

I've been into this topic myself (just recently acquired AFDesigner) and agree with this but I wanted the icons to be a little bit more stylish and would like to cover the possibility of associating the apps with additional file types, if the user does not have another app for handling them (like SVG, IDML, AI or PSD). Also, it seems you didn't cover AFPhoto in your set.

Well, here is my version:

branding.thumb.png.7243292a433ac4d96975b714e74e6ffa.png

Instead of uploading ICNS or ICO files, I'd rather share my AFDESIGN file, fully editable and copyleft so anyone can work and enhance them and Serif may consider them as part of their copyrighted intelectual property and to use them (or any variation) if they please.

branding.afdesign

architect student (5/10) · designer · developer · geek
Affinity Publisher 2.1.1 / Affinity Designer 2.1.1 / Affinity Photo 2.1.1
Windows 11 Pro #22H2 / Dell G15 AMD Ryzen 5 32GB RAM

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On 7/13/2019 at 6:27 PM, Pšenda said:

Designer Icon is flat, Publisher icon is 3D - it is correct?

It does not follow the usual guidelines, but they are just guidelines. Developers can choose to follow them or not, as they see fit, as can users with enough savvy to make modifications on their own.

Personally, I like Serif's choices because I usually use list view & the old style dog-eared page icons with smaller app icons in them make it nearly impossible to tell what the app icon is in that view, but that is just me.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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2 hours ago, Leonardo Pessoa said:

Instead of uploading ICNS or ICO files, I'd rather share my AFDESIGN file, fully editable and copyleft so anyone can work and enhance them and Serif is free to use if they please.

Since you mentioned 'copyleft,' it is perhaps worth mentioning that Serif may consider the Affinity logo designs a part of their copyrighted intellectual property, which would preclude redistributing them without permission.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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2 hours ago, R C-R said:

Since you mentioned 'copyleft,' it is perhaps worth mentioning that Serif may consider the Affinity logo designs a part of their copyrighted intellectual property, which would preclude redistributing them without permission.

I'm not exactly sure how to phrase that out there but I thought it was implicit when I said they could use it if they please as they please. I little bit of credit for the idea would sure be nice but not any kind of condition. I'll edit my post and try; if not fine, drop me a hint on that.

 

3 hours ago, R C-R said:

Personally, I like Serif's choices because I usually use list view & the old style dog-eared page icons with smaller app icons in them make it nearly impossible to tell what the app icon is in that view, but that is just me.

I though of that too but would need to go about testing with real icon files to see how small it would be hard to distinguish the apps. Sure when the icon is all full of colour it is easy but smaller sizes such as 16x16 (and maybe 32x32 nowadays) could simply use the base logo of the app instead of any file icon.

architect student (5/10) · designer · developer · geek
Affinity Publisher 2.1.1 / Affinity Designer 2.1.1 / Affinity Photo 2.1.1
Windows 11 Pro #22H2 / Dell G15 AMD Ryzen 5 32GB RAM

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Very good, Lmpessoa. Thanks for posting this.

I like yours even more than mine. You do really understand what GUI standards mean and how usability and intuitivity work. I dont understand affinity here on this. Not following established standards makes no sense. We have a GUI to use it, not to make it a mess.

Right, I did not include the AF photo, because thats the one exception where I prefer the thumbnail. However, I still did not get to work it in OS X Mojave for desktop or symbol view, the right icons only show up in list view.

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  • 1 year later...
  • 2 months later...
On 11/24/2020 at 5:06 PM, Thomahawk said:

Finally. Version 1.8.6 brings us correct document icons. 

THANK YOU AFFINITY. This is great!

Unfortunately I have to disagree. While I was also not a fun of the old document icons (using the app's own icon is surely a bad choice) , the new ones are even worse than those used to be.

I don't know about others, but most of the time I use either list or column views, and it is impossible to see the completely unnecessary labels of the extensions written on the icons themselves. I do not think we are often looking at 256x256+ pixel versions of the icons, so big dimensions do not count in usability.

The new document icons are just generic white sheet icons with some hard to tell apart tiny colored spots on them. Just look at my everyday view of these icons:

hard-to-tell-apart-icons.png.6304ffaa8facfc1224229a00171f411b.png

I would expect a company like Serif to do a better work than this. I hope they are going to fix these icons soon.

On 7/16/2019 at 3:06 PM, Lmpessoa said:

Well, here is my version:

@Lmpessoa Your afdesign, afpub and afphoto icons are great! Clearly distinguishable even in tiny sizes, and that thing DOES matter a lot. Thanks for sharing!

Edited by Designwiz
typo fix
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4 hours ago, Designwiz said:

white sheet icons with some hard to tell apart tiny colored spots on them.

And do you recognize the standard icons for *.txt and *.rtf provided by the OS well?
In my opinion, the icons of Affinity documents are completely consistent with the appearance of OS (good work Serif, thanks), and the worse resolution of "all" miniature icons is given by the way they are displayed.

Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.4.0.2301
Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155.
Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155.
Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130.

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4 hours ago, Designwiz said:

@Lmpessoa Your afdesign, afpub and afphoto icons are great! Clearly distinguishable even in tiny sizes, and that thing DOES matter a lot.

Do you mean these icons?
image.png.ca191b48f54967cfb5c97f3b5acd98b2.png

Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.4.0.2301
Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155.
Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155.
Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130.

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1 minute ago, Pšenda said:

Do you mean these icons?

No, I did not. The ones you presented here are the PSD, SVG and IMDL icons which I was not referring to. I clearly said: "afdesign, afpub and afphoto icons", so I was talking about the other three icons he designed.

15 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

And do you recognize the standard icons for *.txt and *.rtf provided by the OS well?

It is not about recognizing icons or not. It is about easily spotting the right ones. When icons are pretty similar to each other (which the new Affinity document icons are), then UX suffers.

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4 hours ago, Designwiz said:

The new document icons are just generic white sheet icons with some hard to tell apart tiny colored spots on them. Just look at my everyday view of these icons:

A picture is worth a thousand words, I guess:

icon-comparison.png.a492bd703c8378c2f4b12d36da2b815d.png

Anyone can spot the difference? ;) 

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2 hours ago, Designwiz said:

Anyone can spot the difference?

Yes, a clear inconsistency with the icons defined by the operating system.
The readability of the texts inside the icons is small, so you still have to orient yourself according to their colors. So for me, Affinity icons are just as "readable".
Personally, I orient myself according to the "name" of the file - which for me carries basic and essential information about what and what I want to do with. If the file eventually opens in APhoto, ADesigner, or in something completely different, I don't care - I'll see it anyway after launching the application.

P.S. I see files/icons in Windows like this, so I'm completely satisfied 🙂
image.png.d0a502403fd6118660a9d66077229e3d.png

Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.4.0.2301
Dell OptiPlex 7060, i5-8500 3.00 GHz, 16 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630, Dell P2417H 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155.
Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155.
Intel NUC5PGYH, Pentium N3700 2.40 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics, EIZO EV2456 1920 x 1200, Windows 10 Pro, Version 21H1, Build 19043.2130.

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