Community Poll: Modern Icon-Pack Style for Eclipse

[Michael5601]

The following icon styles created by @IamLRBA and @Michael5601 are part of a new initiative for a new modern icon-pack for Eclipse.
Your feedback will help decide which style will be chosen for the icon-pack.

Please vote for the styles that you like the most and think will work best for Eclipse.

How to Participate:

• At the bottom of the poll, you can vote for your favorite style.
• The background colors represent Eclipse’s light and dark themes, allowing you to evaluate the icons in their intended environments.
• Remember, this poll is about choosing an icon style, not the specific icons themselves. If you like a style but dislike a particular icon, you should still vote for the style since these designs are prototypes.
• The style with the most votes will be discussed further within the community and will serve as the foundation for a new style guide.
• For comparison, the poll also includes the current icons used in Eclipse. If you prefer the original style, feel free to vote for it as well.

Thank you for participating!

Number	style	Light 64x64px	Light 32x32px	Light 16x16px	Dark 64x64px	Dark 32x32px	Dark 16x16px
0	Original
1	Mono
2	Dual-Tone
3	Outline 1
4	One-Line
5	Outline 2
6	Solid
7	Abstract

[Claudio140]

For the outlined icons it might make sense to add colors to some of them, similar to how IntelliJ icons look:


I don't think it would be well readable if all of them were gray, especially if there are many icons close to each other like in a toolbar.

Additionally, if all icons were gray, I can't really imagine how one would easily distinguish active from disabled icon buttons.

[Michael5601]

Thank you for the feedback. The screenshot you provided also supports a disabled icon, so I don't see a problem with supporting icon enablement with monochromatic icons.

[mickaelistria]

FWIW, it's not clear to me which ones are disabled with the screenshot above. This screenshot is IMO highlighting the issue more than diminishing it.

[Michael5601]

The one pause icon in the middle is disabled. All other icons are enabled from which some are colored.

[Claudio140]

For me this is more about visual context than about single disabled buttons. Imagine all the icons were grayscale, then I think it would be harder to tell them apart.

A disabled icon like the pause button next to other gray icons can still be readable, but it is easier if there is at least a colored icon next to the disabled on one side.
Of course, other visual guides like separators and grouping in general also help to quickly identify buttons at a glance.

[mickaelistria]

I also am worried about the impossibility to express icons enablement. Currently is colored for enabled vs grayscale for disabled. What's the proposed solution for enabled vs disabled here?

[Michael5601]

We had a discussion about this here and my argument is that other IDEs also have modern monochromatic icons while supporting icon enablement as seen here.

The idea would be that the disabled version of an icon is darker/brighter than the original.

[laeubi]

Please be aware that we have one very hard to takle problem to solve: Extensions ... and Eclipse heavily depends on them. So If Eclipse switches to whatever "style" it immediately will lead to a wild mixture of old/new styles. So who will take care to update all these as well? Another one is about custom RCP applications, or even supporting "older" Eclipse releases ...

[Michael5601]

This is part of the icon theming implementation. There is already a PR that was worked on 1.5 years ago. A few days ago the work on the PR started again. As far as I know the icon theming shall also work for all bundles/extensions.

The new style is planned as a new icon pack which can be optionally activated with the mentioned icon theming. This means custom RCP applications are not obligated to use the new style but they can if they want. Older Eclipse releases will just use the current default theme and won't have access to the new style.

Plugins from the market place that provide new custom icons are out of scope for this initiative. Providers of the plugins need to update their icons regarding the icon theming or users have to endure mixed icons.