iOS7 Icon Updates

[jfelchner]

This could've been avoided by implementing #551 however we're here now, so let's discuss how we can create a transition plan for moving the icons over to a more "iOS7" style without throwing all the current icons out.

The new icon size for iOS 7 is 120px (vs 114px) Corner radius is an estimated 27px instead of 20px.

[dreamnet]

Hmmm... I knew this too, but that's not very much difference... maybe we can use the existing icons. :pray:

[jfelchner]

The best case scenario is that we're going to have to change MOST of the filenames from 114px.png et all to 120px.png.

[dreamnet]

Yeah, I think the native icons will be no big problem - we have a lot of sources. For all other apps - they must be updated first... :8ball: :wink:

[MagnaMike]

Why don't we just say 'no' to 120px icons. Just take the icons we have and centre them on a 120px by 120px canvas (so it would end up looking like current icons still). I'm not sure but is there a way for a script to do that? Seems like a lot of trouble to go for to re do them all for 6px.

Also, can we get an iOS 7 label? :smile:

Moving forward, whenever fulfilling an icon request maybe we should at least ask for a .png of the icon before it is scaled down?

[ivanov007]

i've been working with @dreamnet since a few weeks ago in the sources for the icons i've made, basically I'm saving the icons into a 1024x1024 .png with transparent background so it can be properly resized to any size including this new resolution, also i'm creating shapes of every icon I'm making (since like a month ago) it's really not that hard when you get some practice, I think this will be a betther walkaround for both new icon size and ipad size... and maybe a new ipad size too in the future Although I donth think all the developers will change their app's icons just the day ios7 get's released so I think we have time to work this out, also there is the jailbreak thing so a that gives us a little more time after the release (hope not thet much for the jailbreak :wink: )

[jfelchner]

Closing this for now. We'll revisit once iOS7 gets closer

[jfelchner]

@Tr1pTr0p what was the difference between the settings icon and the other icons in that image you sent?

[domegranate]

@jfelchner The size. Settings icon was resized to 120 by 120. (Only canvas size changed.) Other icons are 118 by 120.

Basically, this is the deal. 118x120 120x120

I've finished updating system icons and some Apple icons. Here.

[jfelchner]

What about if you take the phone icon and add 1px of transparent padding at the top and bottom? What does that look like?

[domegranate]

118x121 120x120

[jfelchner]

@Tr1pTr0p better. So that means we can use imagemagik to add the transparency to all icons in the repo automatically and make the "iOS 7 compatible" with almost zero manual work.

[jfelchner]

Obviously that means that new icons will require the same extra 2 pixels of transparency via the baseplate, but that's not a big deal I don't think.

[domegranate]

120x120 looks sharper. Open each image in its own tab and compare. Also, I haven't figured out how to use the mask to add the background to icons like iBooks. So I had to add the background as a bottom layer and merge. I assume those masks aren't used in iOS 7?

[dreamnet]

As I mentioned at #3815 AppIconOverlay@2x~iphone.png and AppIconShadow@2x~iphone.png does not exist in iOS7 anymore. With the actual version of winterboard it is not possible to change AppIconMask@2x~iphone.png - if we can do this, we need to change AppIconMask@2x~iphone.png to a 120x120px black .png to make the full icon visible, and then add the 120x120px background to the existing Appstore icons and center them, we also need to add one pixel to the left and the right of the existing Cydia and Stock Apple icons.... But we have to wait until Winterboard is fully updated.... :cry:

[domegranate]

Is batch processing an option? Is there software that can do it all automatically (merge layers/resize and retain transparency)?

[dreamnet]

Yes, I'm pretty sure that can be done with batch processing (I'm sure that e.g. ImageMagick can do this). But this may be double work, as long as we don't know what Winterboard can do with AppIconMask@2x~iphone.png. I am also thinking of giving Glasklart for iOS7 some kind of fresh start (and make the icon size a bit bigger - maybe 84x84px or 82x82px instead of 78x78px), because we need to rebuild Glasklart nearly complete for iOS7 and we have a lot of useless bundles in our repo...

[domegranate]

I agree with a fresh start. Also, from what I can see in iOS 7, there isn't really all that much that can be themed with Winterboard besides icons. Folder backgrounds, notification center, lock screen, Siri... Everything that had a background is now either gone, or transparent/blurry.

[jfelchner]

@dreamnet I don't think a "fresh start" is the way to go. We may have some bundles which are invalid, but we also probably have 5,000 which aren't. Why throw the baby out with the bathwater? We can batch process all the existing icons using ImageMagik and be 95% of the way there.

If you're concerned with invalid bundles, then it'd be 1,000,000 times less work to go through all of the existing bundles manually and check them than it would be to recreate them.

[ivanov007]

@jfelchner @dreamnet and what about the names?, yesterday I have almost every icon themed on ios6 I upgraded and :bomb: bam most of the icons are unthemed, I think that's because of the size also, ios6 uses 114x114 icons and since ios7 uses the 120x120 It'll be a lot of work to make everything work with the new names, I think It'll be almost the same amount of work and for the older devices glasklart will be not that compatible

[domegranate]

This is how all icons would look after being tapped and after closing the application. The dark background is the highlight and it appears for a split second. This is because of the icon mask and it may or may not be fixed in upcoming versions of WinterBoard, but theming wise, I don't think we can do much about it.

@ivanov007 We can rename certain expressions in the filename, for example, icon123x231@2x.png to icon765x789@2x.png. I know Name Changer for OS X can. This will not work if app developer decided to change the name of the icon completely.

[jfelchner]

@ivanov007 if we can do something automated which gets even 80% of the current icons to look "good enough" on iOS7 (which I think is an easily achievable goal) then there is no comparison when it comes to the amount of work.

We currently have approximately 7,270 icons in Glasklart. Let's assume for the sake of argument that only 80% of those are valid (I think this is far too low. I think that more than 90% are valid, but I'm underestimating to make my point).

7,270 * 0.8 = 5,816 valid icons

Let's say, again for the sake of argument that it takes some obscenely low amount of time to create an icon. This includes:

• The time spent processing the Github issue
• The time spent actually creating the icon
• The time spent testing the icon
• The time spent commenting on the icon when the requester doesn't understand something
• The time spent troubleshooting problems
• The time spent verifying someone else's submission
• The time spent incorporating the new icon into Glasklart
• The time spent packaging Glasklart into a new version

Let's say aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalll that takes 5 minutes per icon (which is completely, ridiculously low).

5,816 icons * 5 min/icon = 58,160 minutes = 970 man hours to update all the icons.

vs

• using imagemagik to add some padding
• using Name Mangler (or something) to use regexes to rename icons

Which would probably take about 4-8 hours to do.

At that point, after doing the batch processing, if we want to go through and update each icon on a case-by-case basis, let's do it, but let's not kid ourselves on just how much work it would take to get Glasklart up to it's current level if we "started fresh".

[domegranate]

I'm always for quality over quantity and I believe new, larger, maybe bit flatter, less shadowy Glasklart icons would look much better/fit in better with the rest of the OS. (At least what I've envisioned.) I'm not involved with icon design, but I'm just expressing my opinion.

[MagnaMike]

Ok, we have two conflicting views. Make the 'old' work, or revamp Glasklart and make it nicer. Why is Glasklart popular? Largely because it has a large icon library, I think. Therefore making the 'old' work would be the clear choice. However, what is the point of having a theme if you don't like the result? Personally, I think I'm getting a bit tired of Glasklart and think a revamp could make it fresh again, but is that the best choice for the theme and the users? I don't know...

However, why can't we do both? Hear me out:

If it only takes 4-8 hours to make the 'old' work, then we could do that and then after we are effectively almost back to normal. On the side, revamping Glasklart can be worked on, a new layer style and base plate can be made, or whatever. All new icons can be made with the current style and size them with the padding, but then take a few seconds and apply another layer style for the new look. We can have both, just separate themes, and then the user can decide what they want. Lots of icons or a new look to match a new OS look. Eventually the revamped version will grow if icon makers feel inspired. I don't know (I don't do this part), but surely it's not that much more work managing two identically structured icon libraries?

[jfelchner]

@MagnaMike that's almost exactly what I'm saying. But not maintaining two libraries. Definitely not.

What I'm saying is that:

1. We do the automatic fixes to make all current Glasklart icons work
2. Going forward, we can make all new Glasklart icons be some style that we decide on as a group
3. We can begin to redo icons one-by-one as they are requested/needed.

Will we have some icons that are the new style and some that are the old style? Sure we will. But if you ask me, having that is much preferred over having 10 icons in the new style and 100 unstyled (which is what would happen if we started from scratch).

Glasklart is without a doubt popular because:

1. It is relatively easy for a a novice to create a Glasklart icon (this is not to discount the tremendous amount of work that the contributors do. There is no way I'd spend the amount of time to do what they do and they are to be commended for it).
2. Due to the above point, Glasklart has more icons than the top 80% of themes in Cydia COMBINED. It has the most icons and users are able to have their devices themed in such a way that it looks professional.
3. A lot of thought goes into the look and feel so that when we ship something, it looks like it was professionally designed.

I am all for going a slightly different direction with Glasklart's style (assuming it stays true to the feeling of the theme) but I am not willing to throw away the hundreds of hours spent to make the theme what it is today just because we're tired of the existing icon style.

[ivanov007]

@jfelchner @MagnaMike Sounds good to me, so at some point we will have 114x114 icons and 120x120 icons on the same bundle right? as I guess happened with the retina display, if it's so maybe we'll need to specify on the requests the ios or at least witch ios the requester is running or by default fulfill the requests for both icons until that app decides not to support ios any more (it's not gonna be too long as I saw too many of them already not supporting ios6) hope I made myself clear, in a nutshell I agree with keeping everything and add the ios7 icons to the existing theme

[domegranate]

@ivanov007 There should be a new .theme folder for new icons. Then every user could choose which one to apply, or both. If there will be a new icon design/template, i suggest adding iPad support to all new icons.

[ivanov007]

@Tr1pTr0p ok, then we need a way to know witch request goes where

[jfelchner]

@ivanov007 I would say that we just set a date and all icons fulfilled after that date will be required to be the new iOS7 style. It doesn't matter if they were requested before that date. All that matters is whether they are fulfilled after that date.

So if an icon was requested a month ago, but it doesn't get fulfilled until 3 months from now, it should be the iOS7 style.

[MagnaMike]

Should we make it so that 1024x1024 images of the icon (without layer style) should/have to be uploaded too when fulfilling icons?

On 14 January 2014 16:19, Jeff Felchner notifications@github.com wrote:

@ivanov007 https://github.com/ivanov007 I would say that we just set a date and all icons fulfilled after that date will be required to be the new iOS7 style. It doesn't matter if they were requested before that date. All that matters is whether they are fulfilled after that date.

So if an icon was requested a month ago, but it doesn't get fulfilled until 3 months from now, it should be the iOS7 style.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/glasklart/hd/issues/3055#issuecomment-32308477 .

[ivanov007]

@jfelchner sounds good, so I guess this release will be the last one for ios6, @MagnaMike if we will be doing 120x120 and 114x114 icons I think yes, but if not I don't think it's completely necessary just one size since the new icons will be just for ios7

[MagnaMike]

@ivanov But if we gather icon source files then we can make visual changes (like we are planning now) to the theme in the future way easier and with much less work.

[ivanov007]

@MagnaMike totally agree, in fact I'll be doing so since about 4 months ago, you can see on the @dreamnet's site, I've being uploading 1024x1024 images for my latest icons, the thing is that not all the contributors knows how to work with shapes and/or 1024x1024 images

[MagnaMike]

@ivanov007 All they have to do is save before they shrink the icon down to 78x78 though? Surely that's not too much to ask of people..?

[ivanov007]

@MagnaMike totally agree, so the 1024x1024 image, should it be posted along with the icon fulfill? @jfelchner I'll begin with the facebook icon for ios7, but what about the 62+ open issues I've made since last release, almost all of them are themed for ios6 and the icon name is different for ios7

[jfelchner]

@ivanov007 so what we need to do is come up with automated steps that a computer can do so we can get as many of them as possible in one go.

All you all have to do is tell me what the steps are.

For example:

1. Add 1px of transparent padding on the right and the left
2. Add 2px of transparent padding on the top
3. Rename all icons with 114px in their name to 120px

etc, etc

Regarding the existing icons that you did, I'm going to get one more iOS 6 release out tomorrow. Then, from that point forward, all new submissions should be the new iOS 7 format, so we need to have a baseplate and instructions ready for any newbies.

@dreamnet any thoughts here?

[ghost]

hey guys, let me know if i can help making glasklart ios 7 ready

[dreamnet]

@jfelchner @ivanov007 @MagnaMike @Tr1pTr0p Compliment, very good discussion here. @jfelchner Agree, one more iOS6 release is fine - but I suggest to wait with the iOS7 icons until Winterboard is fully iOS7 compatible, at the moment there is no way to replace AppIconMask@2x~iphone.png, and that's a main problem. As long as we don't know what Winterboard can do with the icons on iOS7, I think we should not add baseplates to our icons or do anyting else, or _maybe_ we will do double work.

[jfelchner]

@dreamnet agree completely. :smile:

[jfelchner]

Renaming and editing the original issue so that it's more appropriate.

[ivanov007]

hey guys have you tried the IconBundles tweak? since we are renaming the icons to ios7 this will come handy for future icon changes on apps updates and who knows maybe this will make the theme compatible with older devices

[ivanov007]

[jfelchner]

HAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ROTFLMAO!!!!

[dreamnet]

@ivanov007 :grin: The IconBundles tweak sounds interesting, never tried it, but with this we don"t need to care about the icon names anymore. I give it a try in a view hours.

[jfelchner]

@ivanov007 that is such an amazing find. Can you imagine how much less work this would be if it works!?!?!? :smile: :+1:

[sinfool]

@jfelchner @dreamnet @ivanov007 ......I mentioned "IconBundles" 5 months ago. Better late than never though ;)

https://github.com/glasklart/hd/issues/3368

[dreamnet]

@sinfool Yeah.... :+1: Well, the IconBundles tweak seems to work fine on iOS7. Normally, I don't like to use anything else than Winterboard, but this tweak can make handling thousands of icons a lot easier - If we decide to use it, I hope we are not running into any trouble later... I was able to get this, just using the IconBundles tweak: As you can see, there are still problems with the Clock icon and the Calendar icon, but the IconBundles method works - and I recognized, that with this method we don't need to care about the AppIconMask, it seems that the tweak completly replaces the icons (so every icon needs a baseplate). For unthemed icons (the Adobe Reader icon in the screenshot) the AppIconMask is still applied and they are looking a bit bigger, because I was using our original Baseplate for this. Has anyone further experience with this tweak? I have copied a .zip of what I have done in our Dropbox folder.

[domegranate]

@dreamnet I can't wait to take a look. Is it still uploading? I don't see it.

[dreamnet]

Ah, sorry - now it is up.

[domegranate]

@dreamnet Great news. I added an empty AppIconMask png file into the Bundles\com.apple.mobileicons.framework folder (to the zipped .theme you uploaded) and everything works like it used to before iOS 7.

[dreamnet]

@Tr1pTr0p Sounds great! Do you need the AppIconMask? This file should be a PNG-24 and it should be almost opaque black - not transparent? P.S.: Can you please update the "Glasklart 7 Icons Alpha.theme" in the Dropbox? THX! @jfelchner @ivanov007 @Tr1pTr0p @MagnaMike I also made a new icon template for iOS7 - it's in the Dropbox. It's almost the same as the "old" Cydia Icon Template, but it's now 120x120px. I have also moved the Baseplate 2px to the bottom, so that the Glasklart icon itself is perfect centered and the Baseplate is also centered in the 120x120px area. I have used the original Baseplate for this and the drawable area is already 78x78px. Any thoughts? I also moved all "old" iOS6 files in the Dropbox to a new iOS6 folder and I made a new folder for iOS7 to keep things clear - I hope, that's OK.