http://expressjs.com/ lacking a favicon.

[Eddy1028]

Hi,
When I visit http://expressjs.com/ , it makes me feel uncomfortable/unprofessional without a favicon on this site.
I hope you'll add it soon, then I will be happy :)

[dougwilson]

Express doesn't have a logo to even make a favicon from. The logo you highlighted in your screenshot is the logo for Strongloop. I think that logo appearing next to the word "Express" is actually an error on the website.

[crandmck]

I think that logo appearing next to the word "Express" is actually an error on the website.

Yes @dougwilson that was an oversight. I just removed it with 241a27a.
It was in CSS, so to see the change, you might have to do a hard-refresh to clear your browser cache.

I agree it would be nice to have a favicon, but as Doug notes, we don't have a logo. Perhaps we can come up with a simple logo for this purpose? I presume the TC would have to sign off on it. Anyone have a suggestion?

[crandmck]

I just thought of something - what about using the default favicon set by the Express generator from serve-favicon: ?

Where did that image come from? Can we use it?

It might give people the idea that the site uses Express itself (which it doesn't), so that's a counter-argument. But maybe it would be better than no favicon?

[hacksparrow]

That's the connect icon, if I am not mistaken.

[crandmck]

OK, then maybe not such a great idea :-(

If that's true, then it begs the question of whether it's the best favicon to use for the express generator and serve-favicon.

[dougwilson]

The express generator provides no icon at all (https://github.com/expressjs/generator/blob/master/templates/js/app.js#L17-18). I would assume that is from the Express generator for the 3.x line of Express, which was based on Connect. I wouldn't use that icon here, because it's likely that Sencha Labs owns the copyright on that icon.

[crandmck]

Interesting. I wonder why I see it? Perhaps I'm doing something wrong or misunderstanding.

Here's how I got the above screenshot of the favicon:

• Updated my installation of the generator: npm i -g express-generator (running express --version shows 4.13.1).
• Created a new app, with express my-express-app & installed deps with npm i
• Ran with npm start
• Loaded http://localhost:3000/. The above icon was shown in the browser tab.

I can see that the generated app.js has this line:
var favicon = require('serve-favicon');
But this line is commented out:
//app.use(favicon(path.join(__dirname, 'public', 'favicon.ico')));

So I don't understand where it's coming from....? Does the browser cache it or something?

I wouldn't use that icon here, because it's likely that Sencha Labs owns the copyright on that icon.

OK, so I guess it's moot anyway, but I'm still curious about ^.

[dougwilson]

I'm sure your browser has it cached. Try clearing your entire browser cache or even using a completely different browser. If you ever loaded something on localhost port 4000 with that icon, it would get stuck there for any site on that host.

[dougwilson]

Another trick to update the cache is to manually browse to the favicon file, http://localhost:4000/favicon.ico let it 404 and then go back to the page and reload.

[crandmck]

I'm sure your browser has it cached.

Yep, that was it. I used a different browser and it didn't show up. Thanks for clearing that up!

Now we're back to the original issue:

...it makes me feel uncomfortable/unprofessional without a favicon on this site.

I think it would be worthwhile to address this at some point. It's not urgent, though, since there has not been a favicon (at least since I've been involved with the project ~18 months +).

[hacksparrow]

a74564b adds an "interim" favicon. We continue to work on the logo in the meantime.

[crandmck]

Thanks @hacksparrow ... Good start. Definitely better than nothing!