Icon alternative

[francola]

Hi!

I kind of Frankensteined the Things icon with the OmniFocus icon to create this. I have always appreciated the GUI of Things, but the development blows! :) Click the image to download.

http://kttns.org/qxyzi (http://cl.ly/12Px)

[jivemm]

Impressed with this - having been a Things user for ages switching to Omni Focus has been great but have thought on more than one occasion that Things really nailed their icon especially for use on the iPhone and Omni's is in comparison is pretty weak (again, especially on the iPhone!)

In the dock with number of tasks pending the icon returns to its original form. Do you have yours permanently set to the one you've made and if so, what steps did you take to make sure it doesn't revert to the original icon when opened?

Cheers,
Rob

[francola]

I physically replace the icns file in the resources folder of OF and also use CandyBar to drag and drop replace. Hope it works for you!

Cheers,
Frank

[viellieb]

Hello francola,

thanks a lot for your work on this icon.
it's the most beautiful Frankenstein I've ever seen.

It's so gorgeous, I want to size up my dock just to see the whole beauty! =)

[FatalError]

Since this is a complete frankenstein, it will never become official, but it looks great and I replaced the official icon with your great description (wouldn't have found the place of the official icon otherwise).

Thanks a lot!

[Mango Himself]

@Francola

man, this is what I wish would happen. The beauty of Things and the versatility of OF!

I can't believe OF has such an ugly interface. I wish they did something about it because the app is awesome.

[Toadling]

I can't believe OF has such an ugly interface.

I just don't get it. I'll accept that Things might be more visually appealing to many people, but OmniFocus ugly? I simply don't understand.

Plain, understated? Perhaps. But ugly? You either dislike the Mac OS X aesthetic all around, or you haven't tinkered with OF's style prefs, or we're working with two different apps.

-Dennis

[porschestrasse]

I'm glad that there is some dissatisfaction with the icon besides mine. I really love OF, but I just don't feel an emotional attachment to the icon. Maybe that sounds dramatic, but the dock icon is a huge element for me.

From my point of view, I just really don't like the purple color, and the size is just, well, wrong. OF next to OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner in my dock just highlights my dislike of it.

I'm going to try the one francola so graciously made, but even then I'm not totally sold.

Thanks for sharing though!

[chris101]

@ Dennis

I suspect that i have a similar response to the OmniFocus UI as the posters above. If only OmniFocus was "plain or understated". Instead i find the UI clunky and jarring. Look at the arrows indicating either sequential or parallel projects, those hideous little archive box icons, or the constant resizing of the main window when switching between perspectives.

The power of the OS X aesthetic is that it melts away over time; the OmniFocus UI for me has had the very opposite effect.

Why do i keep using it then? Because its more general functionality far outweighs anything else on the market and more than makes up for the frustration i feel. I realise this all sounds pretty superficial (and ungrateful), but when the Mac experience is so much about an emotional attachment to the product then i think it is a discussion worth having.

[Robbie1702]

I hope they visually improve their UI for OF 2.0 for Mac as well as they have redesigned their website. That would surely give Things some worries =)

Nice franken-icon by the way. Kind of resonates with what I've hinted at once before: if Omni were just a little more like Things or Things more like Omni... what a wonderful world we would live in!

Haha, I wonder what would happen if they tried to merge. Most likely wouldn't work, but their skills sets seem to complement each other in many ways...

[Toadling]

Instead i find the UI clunky and jarring. Look at the arrows indicating either sequential or parallel projects, those hideous little archive box icons, or the constant resizing of the main window when switching between perspectives.

While I'm mostly happy with the current UI and certainly wouldn't call it ugly, I do hope it gets some attention in the next release. It seems like a lot of people are looking for more polish in that area. I appreciate a beautiful UI as much as any other Mac user.

Chris, can you go into more detail about what it is you dislike about the sequential/parallel arrows or the SAL shoebox icon?

As for the window resizing, that can be controlled with perspectives. Simply set the size you want and resave your perspectives. Alternatively, I think you can just uncheck the Restore Layout option in the perspectives window.

With the right font choices, OmniFocus looks a lot like many other apps in OS X, like Mail, Finder, Yojimbo, or even iTunes, at least at a superficial level. Doesn't it?

-Dennis

[jltdm]

nice work !

[jltdm]

I physically replace the icns file in the resources folder of OF and also use CandyBar to drag and drop replace. Hope it works for you!

Cheers,
Frank

Hi,

again its beautiful, and yes OmniFocus icons suck. How do you replace the icns file in the resources folder of OF? I also use Candy Bar but in my doc the original icon come back.

[francola]

I physically replace the icns file in the resources folder of OF and also use CandyBar to drag and drop replace. Hope it works for you!

Cheers,
Frank

[porschestrasse]

I physically replace the icns file in the resources folder of OF and also use CandyBar to drag and drop replace.

Frank is exactly right; it always takes two steps to change the icon under Snow Leopard. However, I stopped doing that since I've been using the Sneaky Peeks and it gets old after a while...