Hi, I tried a new Lemmy app yesterday. I was already kind of annoyed by different sort icons when using Photon and Voyager, but something snapped when I opened the menu in Interstellar. The third meaning of this arrow was too much.
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Voyager | Photon | Interstellar |
Here's a table of all sort icons:
Some of these differences I'm okay with, like controversial sort, but others not so much. Especially when the same icon is used for different things. The symbols become useless if the meaning is different in every ui. I guess because Lemmy-UI doesn't use icons for sorting, other devs just picked something in isolation.
So, my solution is to build a reference icon set that apps / frontends would loosely follow. This could then be added to Lemmy documentation. Any thoughts?
My ideas so far:
- Hot: fire
- Controversial: Anything negative or conflict
- New: leaf, sprout
- Old: clock, hourglass
- Scaled: I don't like the scale icon, but it's still better than random.
- Most comments: Multiple speech bubbles?
- New comments: Single speech bubble? I like the unread dot in interstellar.
- Top: trophy, medal, podium
- Avoid: star (reserve for favorites)
This post was kinda lemmy-specific, but I'm posting to the generic /c/fediverse since other platforms could have similar issues, and extra perspectives don't hurt.
Links:
- Lemmy sort modes: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/users/03-votes-and-ranking.html
- Material icons: https://fonts.google.com/icons
I do think having recommended thematic icons would be great, and the Hot example is on point for all three. The fact that new and old use very similar icons between the three apps is both understandable and would be annoying if trying out more than one.
I like Voyager's clock for "new", but "old" needs an icon, so I suppose a clock would work there. So then I wouldn't mind a leaf/sprout for "new." Reminds me of sprouts aka new players in FFXIV lol
Anyway it's not a huge issue for me, I barely look at the icons to be honest.