AutoHotkey Community

I think AHK v2 deserves new icons. This helps to distinguish better between v1 and v2 in the notification area (tray), and of course to give v2 a more modern look. I used the forum icon (favicon) as a template. In my opinion, "A" makes more sense than "H", because nowadays the focus of AHK is more on automating processes than just hotkeys. The green color and the used font (Comic Sans Serif) is old-fashioned. As an alternative I offer the following (the sizes are 16x16, 32x32, 48x48, 64x64, 128x128, 256x256):
The only disadvantage of the new icons is that they take up much more space (33.8 KB vs. 224.5 KB), probably because of transparency and additional icon sizes.

If there is interest, I can open a pull request on GitHub to include these icons.

The attachments include svg files to edit and create the icons, the resulting png files, as shown above, and ico files, which are finally used for AHK v2.

I agree, it looks good and better.

Hello,

I think AHK v2 deserves new icons

+1

The only disadvantage of the new icons is that they take up much more space

I do not think this is a good "excuse" in these times...

I do not dislike; I do not know if they are "modern" or not, but maybe a little more "details" and "colors" would give more life to the icons. Regarding the file type icon, something like this maybe?
I like the main icon +1

i agree for some differentiation from v1

While on it, I suggest to change default file extension, so it's another layer telling between v1 and v2, which should also help editors in syntax highlighting & suggestions/filling.

For a fair comparison of file size, you should include only the sizes that are present in AutoHotkey.exe. It would be ridiculous to increase the size of each AutoHotkey executable by 20% just to have big "icons" (that are perhaps too big to be called such, except on very high DPI screens), especially given that they're practically monochrome.

I do not think these look better, and I do not see the need to have different icons for v2. I might agree that these are "modern" style, but don't see how that's a good thing. Anyway, when did green become "old-fashioned"?

I've seen "capslock indicator" programs with icons very similar to those above; "A" in a box being the standard CapsLock icon.

Whether we have greater focus on automation or hotkeys, hotkeys are AutoHotkey's reason for being; the main thing that sets it apart from its predecessor, and every other automation program/toolset. (This is not to say that I care which letter the icon has.)

FYI, the "H" in the current icons is not Comic Sans Serif or any other font. When I created the current icons, I could not find any font that matched the shape of the original icons (which I believe were created by Rajat), so I just drew a few lines.

I agree that new icons would really give v2 some differentiation and distinction. AHK v2 is an evolution and I think it deserves something new.

That said, I don’t really care for the icons provided in the OP. They are incredibly plain. Not sure if I could pick s letter to use. AutoHotkey doesn’t really have a logo otherwise I’d recommend that instead of a letter.

I’d additionally be in favor of a different extension. Unless the thought is that one v2 is GA, v1.1 would no longer be supported (which I am in favor of).

I don't know - I find nothing wrong with the icons we have, and especially the file extension. ahk is the common abbreviation for AutoHotkey - I would like to keep that, and I don't like things like ah2 or four letter combinations for file extensions like ahk2 - although that still would be much better than ah2.
If I need to differentiate one day between AHK v1.1 and AHK v2 scripts on my computer, I would rather change the file extension of the "old" version. I would like to keep the ahk-extension for the stable/main version.

gregster wrote:I don't know - I find nothing wrong with the icons we have, and especially the file extension. ahk is the common abbreviation for AutoHotkey - I would like to keep that, and I don't like things like ah2 or four letter combinations for file extensions like ahk2 - although that still would be much better than ah2.
If I need to differentiate one day between AHK v1.1 and AHK v2 scripts on my computer, I would rather change the file extension of the "old" version. I would like to keep the ahk-extension for the stable/main version.

Nobody said something is wrong with ahk extension, or suggested ah2. ahk is good extension for obvious reason, but that's not why I suggested to change it for v2. In short, I suggested it for:
• Prevent people from running v1 scripts in v2 and viceversa, which likely will cause an error
• Allow editors know which version is used (syntax differences, other function/object set)
• Being able to run v1 and v2 scripts without extra afford

I do not think a new extension is necessary, you're only supposed to use one version (v1 or v2) as the main one, and the other only for tests (as to help other users). I use version 2 as the main one, and to do tests, I have version 1 in a separate folder, then with a Hotkey, I quickly execute the selected text with any version.

I switch between versions regularily and write mostly version independent code.
It would be a bother to have a new extension under these circumstances.

Nobody said something is wrong with ahk extension, or suggested ah2.

Well, ah2 has been suggested multiple times in the past (it's not like talk about AHK v2 is a new thing) - that's why I brought it up as an example.
I am afraid there will be confusion about v1 and v2 anyway - new extension or not.

Flipeador wrote:I do not think a new extension is necessary ...

Prepare for an avalanche of support requests "Why doesn't this script work..."

I think people would do the same if we change the file extension.

I believe the ideal solution would be to have a special #directive that indicates whether this script segment is written for v1, v2, or either. #Include files would need to have this present, too.

Then both v1 and v2 interpreters would need to be enhanced to recognise this new special #directive, and reject incompatible scripts.

When Lexikos wrote a while back that a v2 beta is probably coming soonish I began learning v2 while still mostly using v1. Different icons and file extensions is helpful to me.

Regarding icons perhaps a compromise between team "keep it as it is" and team "new version new fresh look" is to use the old icons but with enough color change to easily distinguish v1 from v2? Tradition *and* progress.

For example here is the H icon adjusted from green to blue-grey. (The red S suspended icon could be the same for all versions to not have that many different colors to remember.) Edit: Link to online image editor in case anyone wants to play with it https://www.photopea.com/#irGf1-Go7


Regarding file extensions .ah2 is ok with me, better than the four letter .ahk2. Another alternative is to reserve .ahk for v2 going forward and encourage use of .ah1 or .ahk1 or .ahkl for v1. L as in legacy version as well as in AutoHotkey_L. Anyone can of course customize with whatever icons and file extensions they like the most but defaults matter.

File extension should be a non issue based on what Lexikos has said about how the installer will work for both versions. I do like your take on the H icon though!

kczx3 wrote: ↑

16 Jun 2021, 12:05

File extension should be a non issue based on what Lexikos has said about how the installer will work for both versions.

Is the idea for non-compiled scripts to have AutoHotkey first analyze the script for patterns unique to v2/v1 and then run or compile it with the appropriate version binary? That would solve one issue with using both versions. But another issue is distinguishing the files in the filesystem. Separate file extensions lets us quickly search for all and only v2 files on the system and sort by file extension directly in Explorer. Seems handy to me. There are other ways to deal with that of course. Keeping a good manual organization with different folders for v1 and v2 is possible or using search tools that parse the contents of the files or putting "v1" or "v2" in the non-extension part of the filename.

maybe dont do blue themes? lol

Looks more purple to me honestly.