Ever changing toolbar icons
This is no biggie, but would it be possible to confine toolbar icon changes introduced in updates into new themes?
It seems like JetBrains changes the toolbar icons with every significant release. After updating, I'm left staring at the toolbar looking for "that icon I know does such and such" only to discover "that icon" is now replaced by "another icon". Of course, I'll eventually remember the new icons, but honestly, I usually have more important things to do at the moment I'm looking for a particular icon.
It would be nice if you encapsulated the new iconography into a new theme. I could then apply that theme at my leisure rather than being jolted into adapting to it as soon as an update is applied.
It's no biggie, just a small, short-term, irritating impediment. :-)
Jack
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Thanks for the feedback, I doubt that it's worth the efforts of providing different icon themes and switching between them.
I've often wanted a few icons moving. The close icon on run/debug tool windows I'd like to move up to same place it is on find windows.
It's often below the fold (<< menu continuation) and often fumble those and end up clicking an action I don't want. Would help my muscle memory if similar icons where kept in same place and ones used most often above the fold as it where.
Please vote for https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-163708.
Thanks Serge. I take your point. In that case, I'd just ask JetBrains to remember that icons are a visual mnemonic for an underlying action. Changing the icon may help the product look fresh, but it breaks the mnemonic until the new association is learned.
Don't get me wrong; you folks make the best tools! This is but a minor annoyance.
Hello, Jack! Could you please give examples of the changed icons that broke the mnemonic for you? This would help us understand how to approach this issue.
Olga,
The ones related to VCS come to mind. The "Update Project", "Commit" "Show Diff" / "Compare with Same Repository Version" and others changed.
Again, it's not a huge deal, just something to slow me down until I get used to the new ones.
Jack
Not to mention icons also don't scale particularly well when using 8k monitors. Jetbrains blames Java but in reality it's their choice for not using scalable graphics like SVG. The font and other items scale fine in java. I wish each version of IDEA that is released came with theme packs that each had ICON pack/sets so I could simply select the previous set of icons instead of having to get the icons from the previous version or a previous commit, make a theme package, and load it just so I can use what my team and I are used to.
I totally agree with the original post. Please stop changing the icons!
I am a professional that relies on IntelliJ to get my work done, and you force me to spend time re-learning how to do things with each release.
Even having the old icons available (which they're not, as far as I can see) would not help me when confronted with a colleague's freshly-installed IDE that is using the new ones.