Apologies, I wasn’t clear enough here - by “default web browser button” I mean a shortcut to the default browser, which is Firefox out-of-the-box, but which the user would be free to change That was probably the most contentious part of the suggestion anyway, but I wasn’t suggesting Ubuntu could ship with its own browser.
In terms of grouping apps based on what icon they have, I agree this would be nonsense, unless the apps have different icons for a meaningful reason, which reflects a genuine difference in category. In this case, it seems that default system apps are going to end up with Suru icons, and apps that the user chooses themselves will mostly or maybe completely have non-Suru icons, and (IMHO) it’s helpful to distinguish between those two classes. Also, one of the good things about Gnome app folders is you can see the icons inside them, and I think the key third party apps (Firefox and LibreOffice) are actually more instantly “findable” in the app grid screenshot above, rather than the default behaviour of being interspersed in the grid of default apps at “F” and “L”.
That was just offered as an outsider perspective/suggestion - obviously if it’s contentious then it won’t work for Ubuntu and I can always group my own apps as I like them.
I think this is exactly right. Whether or not you think squircle app icons are a good idea, what we have now is pretty much the worst possible proportion — where most of them are squircles, but highly prominent ones are not. Because then users get distracted trying to work out what’s special about the non-squircle ones. And sooner or later, they conclude that there isn’t anything special about them, it’s just that the Ubuntu people apparently weren’t organized enough.
However…
One of the first bugs I ever reported about Ubuntu, way back in 2005, was about the settings menu for choosing your preferred Web browser. The menu included an option “Debian Sensible Browser”. The problem was, there was no such browser. It was a generic launcher for shell scripts to invoke, a technical detail, not something that would make any sense to end users.
This Suru web browser icon would be a similar oddity. A generic launcher, showing up only because of a technical detail, in this case a hypothetical inability to change Firefox’s icon. It would help with the icon shape consistency, but it would introduce three new problems:
“If it opens Firefox, why isn’t it called Firefox?” People would spend much more time launching it than customizing it. That it was customizable would not be a good reason for obscuring the current selection.
“If it opens Firefox, why does it look like Safari?” We‘d need an icon that was guessable, but did not look like iOS 6 Safari, nor infringe on any trademark.
“Hmm, I’m not sure about this whole Ubuntu thing.” Using a generic browser icon would mean a first-time Ubuntu user would be much less likely to see any app on the screen that they recognize. That would be a big loss.
Think about why you want the icons to be consistent. It’s a valid emotion, about elegance and harmony and things like that.
Now think about someone who adds an app, to the launcher, that has a non-Suru icon. They’ll feel that same feeling in reverse. There’s now one icon sticking out inelegantly and unharmoniously, and to top it off, it’s their fault, because they put it there! They’ll be tempted to remove it from the launcher again — or not to add it in the first place — even if they really really need to use the app a lot.
Other operating systems don’t put people in that kind of emotional dilemma. Either the OS enforces icon shape consistency for every app, or the shapes are free-form.
I could be wrong, but I think that even within Thunderbird users, few people would care that it was released by the same organization as Firefox — and care about it so strongly as to want a folder just for those two apps.
I like the idea of putting folders first. It looks neater, and would almost certainly be faster to use on average.
I don’t think we should have to start folder names with a funny character to achieve that, though. That seems like the sort of thing that should be changed upstream, or else implemented with an extension.
With jaggers branch merged in 20 days, all pre installed apps have suru icons
Except firefox, thunderbird and libre office (LO may change also if we ask them)
Personally I have more problems with old looking / not flat icons like for example the Gimp app.
I think that’s also a plus to have this “ah those are my base apps”-feeling.
With modern icons on the panel, I see absolutely no problem with mixing them with suru. Example:
Sorry, with all respect, but I highly doubt that. It’s pretty clear: system/base apps have that squircle. And Firefox is a brand Pretty easy if you ask me. The same applies to windows10, system apps have that symbolic microsoft-goes-flat icons. The rest doesn’t.
I would say, putting for example Firefox (and that’s the ONLY none-suru icon left if you use the minimal install )in that squircle would look totally awkward and people could start to ask why the poor firefox was put in there.
I note @frederik-f has grouped the Suru and non-Suru icons on the launcher, as I would, so perhaps one answer is for the default launcher to just do that for the sake of tidiness? That would signal to the user that it’s “permitted” for the launcher to be a mix, without looking disorderly on first impression. When you tidy a room, you don’t say “only one kind of thing is allowed in this room,” but you at least arrange the mix of things in a pleasing way (without going as far as putting any of them out of reach if you use them a lot!). I take @mpt 's points about the problems with the Suru web icon being used here, I suppose that was the most “sentimental” and least usability-focussed suggestion - I withdraw it
Mozilla folder: I think thematic is best, I was trying to think of something that wouldn’t be complex to maintain (thematic folders require new apps to default to sensible places and I’m not sure how easy that is?). Also it occurred to me that Windows users will be familiar with this approach. I think really my main sentiment here is the feeling that “some” (tbc) folders at the start of the app grid would help with visual unity and usability, but they could be whatever is most helpful. As with “Mozilla”, the use of “/” was partly me just trying to think what would be easy but of course it’s better if this can be configured rather than forced.
@didrocks shall we symlink (that’s how snwh does it with most of the icons) it or shall we rather patch the snap for now? Symlink would need another UIFe
@kenvandine
Tried the same for gnome logs
Found a .desktop file in /var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications$which uses
Icon=/snap/gnome-logs/43/meta/gui/gnome-logs.png
Looks like a hard path to me. (And I have 0 knowledge about snaps)
We currently have symlink
log-viewer-app.png gnome-logs.png
So this is strange, any ideas about gnome-logs?
Now that I fixed that gnome-system-monitor I though I could fix it the same way =)
Edit: in the same directory for .desktop files I also found gnome-system-monitor
That one uses
Icon=gnome-system-monitor (so a relative path ? Again: I have no idea, just a guess)
That was probably the most contentious part of the suggestion anyway, but I wasn’t suggesting Ubuntu could ship with its own browser.
Pretty easy if you ask me. The same applies to windows10, system apps have that symbolic microsoft-goes-flat icons. The rest doesn’t.
)in that squircle would look totally awkward and people could start to ask why the poor firefox was put in there.
