Subject: Re: bug#62170: 29.0.60; the default tool bar icons are ugly to modern users and are not customizable

From: Po Lu <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2023 08:52:50 +0800

Spencer Baugh <[email-masked]> writes:

> 1. Open "emacs -Q" and show it to someone who has spent the last 10
> years using popular proprietary applications with big design budgets.
> 2. Point out the tool bar
> 3. Observe a look of disgust pass over their face
> 4. Observe that, if they do still try Emacs, they immediately disable
> tool-bar-mode, even though it's very useful to new users, because it's
> so ugly to them.

Curiously enough, I didn't see that response when I demonstrated Emacs
to a very respectable group of developers who were long time users of MS
Visual Studio...

Instead of ``spent the last 10 years using popular proprietary
applications with big design budgets'', how about ``18 year olds who
have never used anything other than a web browser and a smartphone in
their life?''

> Proposed solution: it should be possible to configure the icons used
> for a tool bar.  Then people could contribute new icon themes which
> don't clash with modern design aesthetics, and eventually one or more
> such icon themes could be adopted into Emacs, and perhaps one could
> even be made the new default icon theme.

Stefan Kangas was working on that.

> Alternatively, we could just throw out the current icons and replace
> them with a minimal and abstract design which hopefully would have
> mass appeal.  But maybe there are people who really like the current
> icons and would be upset about that?

I do.  Every supposedly ``modern'' set of icons proposed lacks color
contrast, making them indistinguishable from each other.