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TheJoeFin / Caffeinated

☕️ Prevent your Windows PC from sleeping. Port of Caffeine for OS X. Upgraded with modern Windows 10 APIs.
MIT License
35 stars 4 forks source link

Consider more distinct icon #9

Closed willnorris closed 3 years ago

willnorris commented 4 years ago

One of the difficulties I had with the original Caffeinated icon was that there wasn't sufficient visual distinction between the active and inactive state. I actually have find the same to be true with your updated eye icon... I have to focus very carefully to tell the difference.

What would you think of using the Material filled and outline coffee cup icons, like @adriancampos did in https://github.com/adriancampos/Caffeinated/commit/02405bd9646bbe9566a6e23756a4ede1657a3a6c ? I think it matches the Windows 10 system icons nicely, and is easy to tell the difference between the two.

TheJoeFin commented 4 years ago

I do like this idea. I might look into adding the option for people to pick between a few different options.

TheJoeFin commented 4 years ago

Here is one option I've made to make state more clear. Thoughts?

NewIcons

willnorris commented 4 years ago

I generally find the eye icon less clear, both the existing and this new one. Maybe that's just me?

But the coffee cup icon here is definitely clearer! Though when empty, it's slightly less obvious what it is, compared to the Material icons. But that's pretty minor.

TheJoeFin commented 3 years ago

Continuing to iterate on both designs: New Mug Icons New Eye Icons (1) New Icons In Taskbar

Mug is more obvious, but would change the identity of the app. The Eye more closely tracks with the original inspiration from Mac.

Am I overthinking people being confused with a different icon? Is the eye distinct enough? Since this is a systray app basically the entire UI is the icon, so I think getting it right is important.

willnorris commented 3 years ago

I don't think you're overthinking it at all, for exactly the reasons you mention! This is the entire UI, so it's worth being really thoughtful about.

I'm curious to hear more about the eye tracking original inspiration from Mac. I know these types of apps have been around for a while, and I honestly don't even know what the original is! :) I currently use KeepingYouAwake on mac, which also uses a mug icon.

I actually think they eye metaphor of being open and closed works really well... it's obvious that an open eye keeps the machine awake. My main concern was that the closed state icon was hard to tell what it really is at 16px (or whatever the icon size is). In this latest example, I wouldn't intuitively know which state meant "stay awake" versus "allow sleep". In fact, it's curious that it's the inverse of the mug icon? Is that intentional?

I find the mug icon easy to distinguish visually, and I think(?) is intuitive as to which icon indicates which state, especially since it matches the system battery icon pretty well.

TheJoeFin commented 3 years ago

The current plan is to let users choose which icon they want to use. Here are the options.

image

This is currently working for me and will soon be released.