Use distinctive application icon/logo for Back In Time (icon proposals)

[Germar]

Hello, I'm AZorin from the Zorin OS project. I believe that Back In Time is a brilliant program although it seems to be missing an independent icon. I have created one which I have attached to this message. Some credit goes to the Oxygen Icon theme. I hope you will like this icon and decide to choose it for your program. Best regards, AZorin

---

Imported from Launchpad using lp2gh.

• date created: 2010-04-23T18:23:49Z
• owner: azorin
• assignee: azorin
• the launchpad url was https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/569139

[meetdilip]

Hi, I am glad you like the concepts. It is ok to take time :)

@buhtz Unable to find any email ID in the link you shared.

[aryoda]

This orange version is also nice. Maybe we can keep this in the back when the users have their dark mode activate.

@meetdilip There is an app to test the icon(s) in different sizes and color schemes but I don't understand how to convert the icon into format required for this app. Do you have an idea how this works?

@buhtz I am growing fan of this icon too because the "back" idiom is very strong ("back button of a browser") and cannot be confused with a "sync" interpretation like the circular arrow does:

Perhaps @emtiu could give us his vote too...

[meetdilip]

@aryoda what is the name of the app? I can try and find out what kind of input it takes.

[aryoda]

@aryoda what is the name of the app? I can try and find out what kind of input it takes.

Sorry, I forgot to paste URL to the app: App Icon Preview which is recommended in the Gnome Icon Guidelines: https://developer.gnome.org/hig/guidelines/app-icons.html

[meetdilip]

I tried, the input format is SVG. But it does not show anything even if I open an SVG file. Not sure why.

[emtiu]

@buhtz I am growing fan of this icon too because the "back" idiom is very strong ("back button of a browser") and cannot be confused with a "sync" interpretation like the circular arrow does:

Perhaps @emtiu could give us his vote too...

I love it! :)

[buhtz]

@buhtz I am growing fan of this icon too because the "back" idiom is very strong ("back button of a browser") and cannot be confused with a "sync" interpretation like the circular arrow does:

I'm convinced! 😄 👍

@meetdilip The mail is hidden under the profile picture.

[aryoda]

I tried, the input format is SVG. But it does not show anything even if I open an SVG file. Not sure why.

@meetdilip Saving the icon as SVG does not seem to work. Instead I clicked on "new app icon" when opening the app, entered an app name and saved the empty template as SVG.

This SVG can now be opened in Inkscape. There is marked section in the SVG file where the big and small icon can be put into:

I don't know inkscape and did not manage to paste your icon into this SVG file but I have just moved one of the existing icons in this SVG file into above marked section and it was shown after saving and opening the SVG file in the "App Icon Preview" App.

How can I paste your PNG icons in this SVG file in Inkscape?

[meetdilip]

I did it for you

[meetdilip]

One more..

[meetdilip]

Dark Blue

[meetdilip]

I reworked the Symbolic icon

[meetdilip]

Yellow

PS: All screenshots use colours from Gnome HIG colour palette

[buhtz]

They all look gorgeous.

In which situations is the "symbolic" icon used?

I wonder how a desktop environment select between a dark and light icon? I couldn't find something about it in the desktop-file specs.

Where is this icon used?

• In the desktop environments application menus.
• In the applications main window title bar.
• In the taskbar.
• In the systray.
• On the website, in the About menu, in the documentation.
• Somewhere else?

[meetdilip]

Thanks :)

In Ubuntu, it is White symbolic icons all the time, in top panel.

[buhtz]

Symbolic icons seems to be used in systray like situations when the systray is a very small one.

In Ubuntu, it is White symbolic icons all the time, in top panel.

I'm not sure but I assume that desktop environments do display different application icons based on the selected dark- or light-mode. Am I wrong?

So do we need to decide about two icons for each mode or just one icon that have to work in dark- and light-mode?

[meetdilip]

I am not sure. I made both of them, to be safe

[meetdilip]

Bigger size as well

[aryoda]

[meetdilip] I did it for you

THX a lot, @meetdilip now it is very easy to get an impression the icon details and colors!

[buhtz] I'm not sure but I assume that desktop environments (DE) do display different application icons based on the selected dark- or light-mode. Am I wrong?

@buhtz This is not the case in general since there is no standardized API for all desktop environments to identify the currently active style as "light" or "dark" but only names of the styles.

Exceptions may apply on a per-DE level where specialized APIs may exist but this then does not work universally for DEs (what we want to achieve).

Icon themes are bundles of standard icons under one name (and installation folder), but app icons are application specific and installed with the app.

Of course we could bundle different app icon for all major icon styles (to stick to their color palettes) and load the best app icon (fitting the active theme) in our python code...

[buhtz] So do we need to decide about two icons for each mode or just one icon that have to work in dark- and light-mode?

No, the main app icon (the big ones) should work under all themes and stay the same. This is why I wanted to check the icons via the "App Icon Preview" tool.

The symbolic icons are handled differently from the main app icons (and even more complicated: also on different DEs): E.g. Gnome does recolor symbolic icons to the "context" (whatever this is). So the symbolic icon should use a single (or only a few) (high-contrast)color(s). KDE also recommends: "Use a monochrome, shade black icon and use color only to communicate state."

To make it more complicated: Our Qt5 GUI framework requires 22x22 px system-tray icon size which then may be scaled down as need for the active DE (16x16 px = symbolic icon size on Gnome I think, but 22x22 px for KDE).

TLDR ;-)

• We only need one app icon for all themes
• meetdilip's monochrome symbolic icons will work for different themes (only one color needed, though I have to test it on different DEs and themes)

[aryoda]

@meetdilip Could you please attach an original svg file that is in the "App Icon Preview" format and includes the proposes icon (color doesn't matter, only the symbolic icon needs to be black/white). I would like to do some tests in different DEs using the symbolic icon.

I need this SVG file since it can export the icon in different sizes...

[meetdilip]

You are welcome. Attaching the SVGs :)

[aryoda]

@meetdilip I have tested the app icon svg file and it works (even as system tray icon).

The symbolic icon (black 16x16 px) is problematic because the color does not change to white (or another light color) if the system tray has a dark background color. I suspect that Qt5 always renders the icon as-is without using the API of the desktop environment (which would possibly adjust the icon color).

So I propose to use the same foreground color(s) for the symbolic icon as for the app icon (even though this breaks every style/theme) but is at least (almost) always visible on light and dark sys tray backgrounds.

Also I need two app icons in different colors for BiT running as user and BiT (root) to make it clearly visible to the user which version is running. How about using

• the orange icon for BiT (root)
• a blue (or other) icon for BiT (normal user)?

I have also discovered another requirement in the code:

• The sys tray icon shall show an progress indicator for running backups/restores. The existing code did try to render a progress bar into the sys tray icon but this code was disabled due to a rendering issue (#902).

Would it be possible to create seven versions of the sys tray icon with

• no progress bar
• 6 versions with a progress bar and the (indicative) progress of 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 %? Or at least in 25-%-steps...

I could switch the icon then via code to the most appropriate progress version whenever the rsync progress is updated.

IMHO the "progress bar" does not need to be a bar, we could also change the fill color of the clock or the folder (but this would be a non-standard behavior).

Sorry for so much work, I never would have expected that "just for an app icon"!

PS: If this is too much work we could also only use different icon variations that show the status "backup/restore running" and "error". @buhtz Any preferences or ideas?

Edit: I would use the 16x16 symbolic icon now as sys tray icon (no need to create a 22x22 version for KDE if the upscaling is working good enough)

[meetdilip]

Hi, nice to see that you have identified your exact needs

I covered everything other than the progress bar variants in the zip file. Let me find a good approach for the symbolic variants.

BIT variants.zip

[meetdilip]

6 versions with a progress bar and the (indicative) progress of 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 %? Or at least in 25-%-steps...

Not sure how to accommodate these fine details in a 16x16 px space. Will see what I can do.

[meetdilip]

[meetdilip]

What do you think?

[meetdilip]

Monochrome view

[meetdilip]

All steps

[meetdilip]

It's complicated. The designing part is easy. But to fit it into the Gnome template is considerable work.

I had to rework the symbolic icon

[meetdilip]

From App Icon Preview

[meetdilip]

@buhtz never got a reply to my email

[buhtz]

@buhtz never got a reply to my email

Got your mail. Just hadn't time to reply you back.

[aryoda]

THX @meetdilip for your adjustments! I am attending a Blender course until Sunday, I will check the new icons starting next Monday...

Am 27. Juli 2023 10:07:24 MESZ schrieb Dilip @.***>:

From App Icon Preview

-- Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/bit-team/backintime/issues/215#issuecomment-1653108430 You are receiving this because you were mentioned.

Message ID: @.***>

[meetdilip]

Take your time :)

[aryoda]

@meetdilip I am still busy with fixing another bug and one more week to continue working here I am afraid.

We are really happy about your engagement and creativity to help us with the new icons.

For licensing reasons (your are the copyright holder of your creative work!) we still need a confirmation from you

• that the icons are your work (or in case they are derived from other's work: A reference/link to the original work + the license conditions)
• that you are contributing your icons to BiT under the GPL3 GPLv2 license (which is used for all our work here) or (if you prefer) a CC* license
• if and how we shall mention you as contributor of the new icons in BiT (alias or real name, link to a web site or similar - please keep in mind that if you want to publish contact data like an email address this may cause a lot of spam)

[meetdilip]

Hi, take your time. No hurry.

I am not sure which licence is the best choice. They are 100% original, hand/mouse drawn.

It would be nice if you can link my GitHub profile in credits (if possible). But I am quite if you can say " artwork by meetdilip ".

[aryoda]

I am not sure which licence is the best choice.

Licensing is extraordinary complicated due to the many different licenses on the market.

I think a good starting point is

https://choosealicense.com/

If you want to contribute your creative work using one of the "creative commons" (CC) licenses (which are in fact quite common for non-source-code work) a simple license configurator is offered here:

https://creativecommons.org/choose/?lang=en

The different flavors of CC (indicated by 2-letter groups appended to "CC") are described here:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

A typical CC BY-SA for example means "Attribution" (quote your name) + "ShareAlike" (= same license for derived work): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

On the other hand using GPLv2 (the license of BiT) you achieve almost the same like CC BY-SA and would make it easier for us to maintain only one license but if others copy + modify + publish your icons there is no obligation to name you as author ("attribution"):

https://choosealicense.com/licenses/gpl-2.0/

Whatever you choose I would recommend to embed your license as meta data (RDFa or similar) into the SVG files you contribute to ensure the license is not lost when the files are copied (separate license files are more complicated to keep together with your files IMHO).

[meetdilip]

Ok, I have no particular preference. :)

[aryoda]

@emtiu Here you can find our up-to-date icon draft (designed by @meetdilip) with two different colors (one for BiT root and one for BiT user). Any comments or vetos?

The systray icon shall look like this (black/white due to newer color style in Gnome, but the colored versions may be more easy to recognize since they correspond to the app icons):

https://github.com/bit-team/backintime/issues/215#issuecomment-1647342214

https://github.com/bit-team/backintime/issues/215#issuecomment-1653086774

Note: The numbers in the the systray icon shall indicate the progress of a backup or restore in percent but it may be still be difficult to read this (I will prepare add the icons to a feature branch soon to test it).

[emtiu]

@emtiu Here you can find our up-to-date icon draft (designed by @meetdilip) with two different colors (one for BiT root and one for BiT user). Any comments or vetos?

No veto, I really like it :)

[buhtz]

Just noticed our boring icon that reminds me about this issue here. ;)

To my understanding after reading this thread @meetdilip just need to decided about a licence. When you need assistence choosing one I would suggest to contact the community of Inkscape, or the Free Software Foundation (Europe) or the "Open Source Initiative".

[aryoda]

@meetdilip gave us the freedom to choose:

Ok, I have no particular preference. :)

It is now my turn to incorporate the changes and I would like to use the new icons in our upcoming Qt6 version now

[buhtz]

FYI: We might get got a small press release on linuxnews.de. The author asked me for our logo. 🤣 In the end I provided a screenshot of the main window.

[buhtz]

I would like to bring this to an end. We need some decisions and statements from @meetdilip about it. It is not possible to give us the choice. He is author and copyright holder and need to decide. But we can assist this.

Our goal is to use the logo for Back In Time but other projects shouldn't be allowed to use it in another context.

Dear Dilip, your answers to the following questions would help us to direct you to an appropriate license.

1. Is it OK for you if the use of the logo is exclusive to the Back In Time project?
2. Is it OK for you if Back In Time as project can access the logos source file (an svg?)?
3. Is it OK for you if Back In Time project members do modify the source file? Modifications for example are changing the color palette, use another size/resolution, add the logo to another picture (e.g. on to a screenshot).

One licensing model could be that Dilip keep authorship and copyright and give the BIT an exclusive-use license with rights to modify in perpetuity. But I am not clear enough about it today. We need to consider two relationships: 1) Between Dilip (the author) and the BIT project 2) the BIT project and the rest of the world.

Collecting some information and opinion about this topic

• Asked on Inkscape forum about licensing: https://inkscape.org/forums/beyond/how-to-licence-a-project-specific-software-logo/.
• debian-legal mailing list
• REUSE.software mailing list (related to SPDX specification)

[buhtz]

Hello Dilip, long research, short answer. The easiest for all parties would by if you would release the logo with the same licence as we use in Back In Time project. The license is "GPL-2.0-or-later".

The meaning is (in short) that everyone, not only members of our project, can use, modify and publish the logo.

What do you think?