Allow app icon to be configured

[miguelsolorio]

Refs #101014

Everyone has different preferences for what icon they'd like to see in the dock. We've seen this in all of our brand re-designs and it's impossible to make a single icon that everyone loves. This issue is to request to allow the app icon to be configured from a set of icons. Below are a few examples that currently do this.

Nova

GitHub (mobile)

Pocket Casts

Hand Mirror

Amphetamine

[mrleblanc101]

You can still hope, but I doubt this has any chance of happening.
Microsoft has a design language and will to unify all their icons.
Just like on iOS, all apps will move to the current logo in a white square.

[robinmanuelthiel]

You can still hope, but I doubt this has any chance of happening.
Microsoft has a design language and will to unify all their icons.
Just like on iOS, all apps will move to the current logo in a white square.

Which is a shame and a missed chance!

Maybe, we can trigger a change across the whole icon palette of Microsoft from here!

[mrgrieves4]

Although the new icon does well to fit in with the Big Sur icon style, I actually really do hate the new macos icon styling. It makes all the icons look the same, so now unless I zoom in I can't tell the difference between Safari, Chrome, Visual Studio Code and numerous other indistinguishable white icons. The old one was nice and clear.

[mrleblanc101]

@mrgrieves4 I don't think it's Microsoft problem to solve that you don't like the OS design language. You can already change every icon in the OS by yourself if you are not happy with them.

[mrgrieves4]

@mrgrieves4 I don't think it's Microsoft problem to solve that you don't like the OS design language. You can already change every icon in the OS by yourself if you are not happy with them.

I do agree with you up to a point, although I would argue it's an accessibility problem that the icons are now harder to distinguish and it's a shame to see all the big companies just blindly follow Apple's own icon changes. If I do go and change them all myself, chances are they will all look like crap, but maybe I will give it a go.

I am intending to complain to apple about it too, but i can't see them doing anything about it as it was a big selling point of big sur for some reason. I don't feel Big Sur helped the visually impared a great deal. But anyway, for something like vscode it seems like a pretty unimportant thing.

[natew]

Having a hard time quickly switching when developing, this is are the icons I typically have when doing react native stuff, Safari and VSCode especially are things I switch between often and it's tough:

[fishcharlie]

@mikibakaiki This isn't the place for unrelated bug reports. Please keep the conversation on topic as to not spam the users who are subscribed to this thread.

[miguelsolorio]

@mikibakaiki please see #101014 (comment)

[BelKed]

I suggest this one icon for dark mode made by @austincondiff (#101014 (comment)):

And @tborychowski also made ICNS file and temporary script for changing icons (#101014 (comment))...

[CodeBrotha]

@mrgrieves4 I don't think it's Microsoft problem to solve that you don't like the OS design language. You can already change every icon in the OS by yourself if you are not happy with them.

Which reverts to the default with every VS Code update. Why can't there at least be a light/dark icon option?

[tborychowski]

Guys just use https://replacicon.app or similar and forget about it! 🙂

[JennGoodman-CL]

I'm certain a great many fans of the new icon exist, I am not one of them. It's not difficult to give users a way to choose their icon, please update to allow this to be changed.

[avdept]

Its the worst change vscode ever had. Now I have about 5 icons with white background and blue foreground and I'm really having hard times switching, because it looks almost the same.

[semaja2]

+1 The new icon is horrible

Would much prefer a darker background instead of white, but also having the ability for VSCode to let us pick would even be better

You can see in XCode and other Apple icons as well, they didnt always do the "lazy" by putting their old icon on a background, sometimes they made them overhang or have more details

[mvdobrinin]

IMO no background is way better than light or dark background for the icon. The icon used to be unique, beautiful, and easy to find. Now it blends in and introduces context switching strain.

Instead of using an app to switch icons, is there a way to bake the old icon into a VSCode extension? 🤔

[mrleblanc101]

@mvdobrinin This is the new style for all icon since Big Sur.

[CodeBrotha]

@mvdobrinin This is the new style for all icon since Big Sur.

That doesn't make it a good idea. All Big Sur icons are terrible for accessibilty in fact.

[mrleblanc101]

@CodeBrotha That's only your opinion. And that doesn't make it Microsoft problem to fix an OS design choice. VS Code icon respect the design of the platform you're running on, if you're not happy with macOS, use Windows

[CodeBrotha]

@CodeBrotha That's only your opinion. And that doesn't make it Microsoft problem to fix an OS design choice. VS Code icon respect the design of the platform you're running on, if you're not happy with macOS, use Windows

If you're happy with it, I'm happy for you, but that's only your opinion. Please don't belittle the valid complaints of those who aren't happy with it, just because it doesn't affect you.

[mrleblanc101]

@CodeBrotha I did not dismiss it. Your issue is with Apple and not VS Code

[mrgrieves4]

I'm reasonably sure apple guidelines don't enforce every icon to be the same colour. I have plenty of big sur-ified icons that are the new shape, but stand out well enough from the others. Some of apple's own icons like xcode and mail look fine, as do sublime text, vivaldi etc.

Think Microsoft have just taken the lazy route and squashed the old icons into a horrible white background.

[mrleblanc101]

@mrgrieves4 You might find it lazy but Microsoft is unifying its icons over hundred of apps and services on multiple platform and this is one of the few way to keep a consistent branding.

[mrgrieves4]

OK, I can understand why they've done it but but that makes it a Microsoft problem not an apple one. I actually really dislike the new icon on edge and outlook as well. If "branding" sends a message, then the message I am getting is "quick and dirty"

[zevrix]

I understand the desire to adhere to Apple's design suggestions. However, it doesn't mean developers have to butcher their perfectly good icons, which only diminishes the value of the app.

I attached an image to illustrate my point:

On the left:
Powerful and glorious Xcode icon alongside an equally powerful and glorious VSCode icon

On the right:
Powerful and glorious Xcode icon alongside sad, shivering, shrunk VSCode icon cowering somewhere in a homeless encampment tent.

The new VSCode icon gives an impression that developers lost any respect to - as well as pride in - their own app.

There are ways to adhere to Apple's loose design suggestions while retaining a powerful full-sized icon that VSCode deserves.

Thank you for your attention to this.

[semaja2]

This issue was towards allowing us to change the icon, we probably do not need to distract with the current bad icon design

Is there any reason not to allow a configuration option to change the icon? Many apps both on the Mac and iOS permit this, to allow a user to tailor their experience (eg. VSCode allows themes already?)

PS. In the previous example, why not just make the blue VSCode element bigger than the white square, same as the xcode hammer is larger

[mrleblanc101]

The icon doesn't have a bad design, you might not like it but it doesn't make it bad. I'm pretty sure the designer at Microsoft are more qualified than you to judge that. It respect every aspect of the Human Interface Guideline and if you're not happy you can change the icon or use another code editor. Microsoft just updated the whole Office suite to this branding too.

[semaja2]

The icon doesn't have a bad design, you might not like it but it doesn't make it bad. I'm pretty sure the designer at Microsoft are more qualified than you to judge that. It respect every aspect of the Human Interface Guideline and if you're not happy you can change the icon or use another code editor. Microsoft just updated the whole Office suite to this branding too.

As I was alluding to, I think its best as per this feature request to simply allow users to change the icon, everyone has their own personal taste

Allowing users to change the icon, makes the discussion about the icon design mute

[mrleblanc101]

Wasting engineer hours on such useless feature. Can you change Firefox, Chrome, Word logo ? It's not up to each app to include such a feature. The only reason some iOS does it is because it's built into the system and even then very few app offer that possibility.

[robhaswell]

It's not useless, I'm always wasting time trying to find the VScode icon in my taskbar because it's so similar to everything else.

…

On Fri, 25 Jun 2021 at 03:15, Sébastien LeBlanc ***@***.***> wrote: Wasting engineer hours on such useless feature. Can you change Firefox, Chrome, Word logo ? It's not up to each app to include such a feature. The only reason some iOS does it is because it's built into the system. — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#120604 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AADFN7XV3J6VMTZULFT5HJTTUPRCVANCNFSM42N4J23Q> .

[cvster]

Currently I have made 3 different vscode instance by portable mode.

1. copy portable mode folder
2. changing the icon in code.exe by ResourceHacker
3. change win32AppUserModelId in "resources\app\product.json" (which differs the app in taskbar)

But the portable mode is big and not convenient for update. Could it be possible to have the feature by config the vscode shortcut or command line to start a vscode instance in different color and appid?

like this :

code.exe --color orange --appid OrangeVscode 

[zevrix]

The icon doesn't have a bad design... Microsoft just updated the whole Office suite to this branding too.

I just saw the updated icons of the entire Office suite recently (as the auto-update app didn't work). With all due respect, they're all equally horrible.

I'm pretty sure the designer at Microsoft are more qualified than you to judge that.

Evidently they're not. Shrinking icons is not a professional redesign - it's a lazy sad hack to make an impression that something has been done. Oh wow Microsoft icons are now tiny and hardly recognizable by the user - how user-friendly and creative!

It respect every aspect of the Human Interface Guideline...

Apple's new "guidelines" on Big Sur is a truly unfortunate and unnecessary change. Still, nowhere in their guidelines Apple implies that developers must shrink and otherwise destroy their perfectly good icons that served users for years. There are ways to redesign the icons, if needed, without shrinking them and making them user-unfriendly. Some examples: Apple's Preview and System Information, as well as Cyberduck.

[zevrix]

@cvster: well luckily for Windows users, Microsoft didn't vandalize their own icons on Windows. they only did it on Mac.

[DuncanHills]

I'd like to bump this issue as the current VSCode icon is not pleasant and indistinguishable. Basically it fails at the measures of success for an "icon" in general.