i think i agree about the colors being over the top but i am biased; i absolutely hate halloween and the colors remind me of that 
Hi, about the new SGP look, the new icons are well designed but why they are monochromatic ? flat ant monochrome design are ‘fashion’, but all the fashions are not good to follow…
Colorized icons help memorize and to find more quickly the corresponding buttons, please give us more colors …
I don’t normally fuss too much about colors on program UIs, and I like the overall improvements, but I have to agree the monotone palette on the new version is not…ideal. What was wrong with “green” for a connected device. I could look from my house to my laptop 20 feet outside that something was amiss. Now, everything is a monotone Halloween blur.
Larry
The icons are here to stay. Sorry. We have reasons for moving off of the old set and going back is not an option. We may look into other color options but the current icons are likely to stay as is.
Thank for understanding,
Jared
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I really don’t like these new icons and especially the color is just ugly 
At least get some color back on the icons so they are easier for people to distinguish
Just going to respond once here with respect to colors, icons and pictures… Not in a condescending way, just meaning I have no wish to debate the subject right now.
The SGPro backlog of stuff to do is pretty big and contains some cool stuff. We had to change icons for various reasons that are not important and also took some time to straighten some things out because we were “in the code”.
So… given that we actually have a lot of cool things to implement and release… given that we already spend a majority of our SGPro time on support (which is fine)… given that we really do have limited time for new features, can we please turn this complaint stream off (to reduce noise)? It takes a while to change this stuff and I’m sure most of you who have complained about the icons would rather see that time spent somewhere else.
A few things to remember:
- None of the layout that you are used to has changed, just the color and shape of some images.
- Arguments around “This color is ugly” are silly and baseless… arguing about color is fairly useless… what if orange is my favorite color? Also, you would be lynched in Austin for saying that.
- The only icons that might need memorization are along the main menu bar of the main app and the image preview window (on top). As for the main application, those buttons are not used regularly because they just change which modules are visible and which are not… something that, for most is pretty static. As for the image preview menu bar, these icons are pretty self-explanatory… arrows, star, rotation, etc. (except for color, they all look very similar to the old icons)
- All of the other icon / image changes are either new or have words next to them and icons are used for consistency.
- A fair portion of our users have red screens which invalidate any color schemes anyhow
- We know that all trends should not be followed because we were alive in the 80’s. Thanks for the advice though.
Anyhow, if this is what you would like to discuss, I won’t stop you, but I have taken the time to respond… to let you know that we hear you, but also to let you know it is not a “change back” scenario and changing again is not likely to make the priority list.
Thanks!
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This sounds super condescending… apologies. Just to clarify, it’s not meant to… just meant to indicate that I have no wish to debate the subject at present, and not to sound like scolding parent.
Just tried the beta last night, everything was great. I was in -15C weather as well, I want to emphasize how well SGP worked last night with those conditions you want everything to be reliable and not having to fiddle too much and it was perfect.
The fast focus setting seemed to be reliable for me.
I noticed the 3 new step process for plate solving makes that screen a bit cleaner.
Thanks Ken and Jared.
Fantastic Ken . . . got to keep a sense of humour 
!
I like the refreshed look & importantly you and Jared keep up the good work 
lots of thanks from me!
Thanks @entilza for the feedback.
Thanks @BarryWilson
Oh!, Also, I forgot to mention… if you didn’t already know, you can hover over almost any icon in SGPro and a tooltip will pop up revealing the icon’s purpose. Not the most fluid workflow, but it would probably take you only a few times before you made the association.
Strictly about the colour scheme… not liking the orange. Doesn’t look very good/pro, IMO. The active and inactive states don’t appear as obvious with the orange. Red/green was good, on/off, easy quick visual… The overall GUI needs to be a dark grey with contrasty icons and text, just not orange! Would be easier on the eyes. I agree with the “Halloween” comment. The technical side of SGP is though, as always, quite extraordinary.
Cheers,
Hey @Ken,
You’re definitely not condescending. I don’t have an issue with the new icons/colours. Of course, my wife says I’m colour blind (not in the medical sense lol ! ). But I digress …
Most importantly … I fully and completely vote for NEW COOL stuff 
Keep up the great work (and @Jared too).
Dave NL
Ken, I will be honest. I’m not a huge fan of the new icons. A like orange and grey as much as the next person but from a purely ergonomic standpoint, on a laptop, I find some too indistinct.
Part of this is a visual contrast thing and others are the images themselves. Restricting the color range puts more emphasis on the design clarity for the user to discriminate between them. By selectively introducing other colors, it helps to distinguish small icons. On the basis of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, what were you trying to redress?
It is by no means a deal breaker - it does not compare to the win98 icons of MDL or the confusing tiny monochrome icons of Redshift, but you did ask.
I understand most of the points of view with regard to color and would agree that those complaints centered on the idea that “I don’t like orange” (including mine, since I am not an orange fan) are kinda silly. It is function that counts, not esthetics.
Having said that, and speaking as someone with a degree in perceptual psychology (undergrad before I went on to other postgrad things), two things are the most critical to visual perception, motion and color. Since motion is (mostly) not relevant, that leaves us with color. That is why I would plea for more varied colors, regardless of what they are. It helps us distinguish between items and therefore makes the interface better.
Just my .02
I didn’t ask, I said I wouldn’t stop you from complaining.
That’s a lot of science for what amounts to 15 buttons (some of which are arrows and rotation)
At the cost of other things I assume?[quote=“buzz, post:25, topic:4611”]
On the basis of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, what were you trying to redress?
[/quote]
Not important, but it had nothing to do with functionality or a burning desire to suddenly replace all the icons.
I am not sure the number of buttons is important and the science not that complex (has been well established for decades). Whether it is 2 or 20, when icons are different colors the eye/brain will distinguish more quickly and with less thought which makes for a smoother and easier user experience than when they are different shapes or even sizes. The smaller they are, the more true this becomes and with some of today’s high res. screens, they can get pretty small.
I am not much of a software guy (have done a little a few years back) but from what I do know, just changing colors is not a huge thing. What would take more time is developing a new and different logical and coherent coloring scheme. I basically think that going to all one color has had some negative human perceptual effects and has decreased what I would call the “visual ergonomics” of SGP.
As others have said, this “one color” thing is not a deal breaker but I would be remiss if I said that I thought it improved the program overall, I don’t think it does and IMHO is a step (albeit small) in the opposite direction.
These icons were held over from when SGP was free. The old icons do not permit us to use them for a commercial product. We were not asked to change them, but took it as a matter of ethics to operate within their license. Essentially we were self auditing and found we needed to fix this. So it was broke…But not from a user facing perspective.
Thanks
Jared
Changing color is fairly simplistic. Changing iconography is another story as they’re static image resources. Add to that neither of us are graphic designers so we’re at the mercy of icon packs that we can find that look decent and aren’t thousands of dollars for a commercial license.
People hear that you’re distributing them and the licensing cost goes up 100x.
Many folks assume that the cost to develop software is just our time and while that is a significant part there are other hard costs that come with licensing fees. Believe me if we didn’t have a reason for changing the icons they would have stayed. If their license allowed commercial use for a reasonable price they would have stayed.
If someone would like to design us an icon set that is better and more of a fit we can certainly talk licensing costs. But finding uniform iconography with astrophotography specific images isn’t a market that many artists are heavily involved in. It would be great if we possessed those talents but honestly I would rather work on better features than figure out how much drop shadow is necessarily on a 20x20 icon 
Thanks
Jared
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Thanks for this explanation Jared. That really helps us all understand the need for the change. And I think most of us would agree that cosmetic changes are not as important as functional improvements.
That said, what’s being said in this thread is not about the icons themselves but the color. We will all get used to new icons, no biggie. I think simply changing back to red/green for connected/disconnected, and keeping the new icons, will go a LONG way to ending this discussion.