XYplorer Beta Club

Here is the Outlook 2007 next to the XYplorer in Win7.

the current icon with different colors works as well. although if we are being critical i think a more stylish/modern would be cool (some of the points TheQwerty mentioned about shades/fades/light)

For the alternative one, i agree that light colors would make it stand out more. being explorer is one of the main programs i use and have open all the time it would make finding/selecting it in the taskbar easier.

I say, switch the black and white, then throw in a some Red.

Out of curiosity, may I ask if you have enquired with Microsoft regarding potentially possible ways of changing Outlook's icon?

That's why lots of people hate MS, zer0. Don't forget about that. If MS had such a great support as we are being given here, or flexibility, XYplorer probably would never come into light.
Hi, all!

SkyFrontier wrote:That's why lots of people hate MS, zer0. Don't forget about that. If MS had such a great support as we are being given here, or flexibility, XYplorer probably would never come into light.
Hi, all!

While I somewhat see your point, if you don't ask you don't get. If everyone finds it more convenient to ask 3rd party developers instead of Microsoft then one can't expect them to include said functionality

zer0:
If everyone finds it more convenient to ask 3rd party developers instead of Microsoft then one can't expect them to include said functionality.

So they are definitely deaf. There are several reasons, and Vista/7 users know them very well. I am not anti-MS or such dumb thing, I use WinXP and am happy with it (after several tens of modifications, of course - most of them 3rd party...). But the point is: will you expect MS to hear thousands of complaints, several attorney fights, hundreds of hours on code testing (hahaha, that was just a joke!) or simply go to an affordable 3rd party solution and get the job done?

Regards,

SkyFrontier.

My point still stands. People can't expect things to change if they don't stand up and have their say

It's kind of grown on me but I do still find myself occasionally opening the wrong window because I instinctively mouse towards some brighter more similar to orange icons.

But one thing I just realized is that it is very similar in style but not color to the icon used by Xmarks for their favicon and the one shown in my Firefox status bar.

TheQwerty wrote:It's kind of grown on me but I do still find myself occasionally opening the wrong window because I instinctively mouse towards some brighter more similar to orange icons.

But one thing I just realized is that it is very similar in style but not color to the icon used by Xmarks for their favicon and the one shown in my Firefox status bar.

20100405-2004_05_1054 -.png

Yep, quite similar but not as powerful. Looks like a butterfly compared to a buffalo...
Of course, on a space of 16x16 and millions of icons already existing, it will be a hard to task to create something totally new...

Anyway, while I still like the new black icon, I will have a try at yet another design. Working on it...

New version: rounder corners, browner, shadows and gradients, bolder lines. Here are the other sizes in the resource:

It looks pretty good but I have a hard time judging until it's actually in the interface.

One thought I had last night (when the edge of the icon completely disappeared on my black theme) is that perhaps a thin white border around the box would look good.

Granted I absolutely suck at making icons so yeah.

Looks better than the black one but I still love the existing one as it's SO clear and obvious what it is.

TheQwerty wrote:One thought I had last night (when the edge of the icon completely disappeared on my black theme) is that perhaps a thin white border around the box would look good.

Do you mean a 1-pixel white border (inside) and a 1-pixel black border (outside)? A few things to mention about the new design...

-- on the 256x256 32-bit icon (the large one) the corners are somewhat pixelated. This may have something to do with the way forum image uploader works.
-- it is rather dark. Personal taste dictates that shades of lighter colours are preferred as they are easier on the eye.
-- I still can't convince myself that it's a partial "Y" as portrayed by the buffalo's horns. If anything, it's a "V" as both letters share symmetry along the vertical.

zer0 wrote:

TheQwerty wrote:One thought I had last night (when the edge of the icon completely disappeared on my black theme) is that perhaps a thin white border around the box would look good.

Do you mean a 1-pixel white border (inside) and a 1-pixel black border (outside)?

Perhaps, I hadn't given it enough thought & experimentation to narrow it down that far.

zer0 wrote:-- I still can't convince myself that it's a partial "Y" as portrayed by the buffalo's horns. If anything, it's a "V" as both letters share symmetry along the vertical.

Same here! I was wondering if a very minimal width 'tail' to the horns extending down to form a bit of a "Y" would help or just look crappy...either that or make the horns be a bit narrower and than add a similar width tail.

Here's another one. Skipping the Y alltogether...