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Lawnicons contributing guide

Welcome to the Lawnicons contributing guide! This file will tell you what you need to know to contribute to Lawnicons.

Before you start, please fork the project and clone it to your machine. Afterwards, you can either contribute icons or code.

Contributing icons

For beginners, it is faster to create icons in Figma, although Inkscape and similar software will do. A file explorer, a text editor, and a terminal window will also be useful.

For additional information on designing icons and samples, see the Lawnicons Figma repository made by Grabstertv.

Need help? Join Lawnchair on Discord.

TL;DR on icon design

The canvas is 192×192px. The content area for most icons is 160×160px, meaning the long side of an icon should be 160px. Square icons should be 154×154px. No fill, the stroke width is 12px. All shapes should be black #000 with rounded ends and joins. Round 90° angles by 6-32px. Avoid noticable black spots, close distances between strokes, and drastic changes in stroke widths. Simplify details, but don't lose recognizability. Provide original and localized names, so the icons can be found.

To avoid rework, save time and understand the limitations of the guidelines, it is worth reading reviews (e.g., +8 icons, +1 link, +4 updates) and creating 5-10 icons in the first contribution.

Canvas & Sizes

Canvas

The canvas size should be 192×192px so that there is a safe zone around the icons to control consistency.

Content area for all but square

All but square icons must fit the 160×160px content area size. Be careful with abstract icons: the long side should be 160px, but the other side can be smaller. Remember to adjust the size of all icons when you change the base stroke thickness (12px).

Content area for squares

Square icons must fit the 154×154px content area size. Icons that mostly fit in a square are considered square. If the icon is kinda square and kinda not, choose a size based on density: 154×154px for dense icons, 160×160px for the rest. Examples: GitHub or Figma.

Foundation

Color

All shapes must have non-transparent black color #000000.

Stroke widths

The stroke should be kept at 12px in most cases. If an icon is too minimal or dense, you'll need other widths: 14px for the most minimal, and 8px for the densest. For fine details, you can use 6px. For more clarification, please refer to the visual balance section down below.

End caps

All shapes must have rounded caps and joins.

Corner radius

Use 6—32px for 90° angles. It is allowed to leave 0px radius in cases when the others spoil the shape: for example, when a right angle is formed of short lines.

Details

When designing icons, it's important to strike a balance with the level of detail. While some icons can be highly detailed, it's acceptable to remove certain details as long as the icon remains recognizable and stays true to its original concept. In some cases, you may need to completely rethink the icon to achieve a minimalist design.

A great example of this is the Subway Surfers icon as seen in the example above. In Lawnicons, it was reimagined by using the graffiti-styled "S" from the game's logo instead of depicting the character, which would have required intricate shapes and varying stroke thicknesses.

In contrary, it's also important to avoid too few details, as they may not be easily recognizable. Take the Headspace icon, for instance, which consists only of a circle. This may pose a problem for users since Lawnicons are not colored, and a simple circle on its own is not easily identifiable. Whenever possible, incorporate additional details that align with the app's design language.

In the Headspace example above, the circles usually have a face representing mood. By adding one of those faces to the circle, you can make the icon more recognizable.

Maintaining Consistency

All icons must adhere to an outline (not filled) to maintain a consistent theme. However, fill can be used sparingly for small details that require minimal contrast or for elements that cannot be accurately recreated with an outline.

The key is to ensure that any filled elements do not overwhelm the overall icon design and align with the outlined style to create a harmonious and coherent icon set.

Maintaining Visual Balance

Sharp contrast occurs when there is a drastic change in stroke thickness without a smooth transition. For instance, using a 12px stroke and suddenly decreasing it to 8px creates an unbalanced visual effect in the final icon.

To avoid sharp contrast, you can follow either of these two methods:

  1. Uniform Stroke: Instead of jumping between stroke thicknesses, use the next immediate increment in width. For example, transition from 12px to 10px.
  2. Gradual Transition: Rather than making a large jump, introduce an intermediate thickness. By going from 12px to 10px and then to 8px you create a gradual transition or gradation. This approach helps maintain visual balance in your icon design.

Naming

To make it easier to find icons, you should keep the original names. Arabic, Chinese or Japanese names need to be supplemented with an English version. If you are adding a link to an existing icon, keep (or complement) the existing app and drawable names.

App name

Should be the same as in Google Play, F-Droid or the official name. If the name in the source is too long, it's acceptable to remove the second part of the name without loss of recognition.

Wrong • Google Play name: "Zoom - One Platform to Connect"
<item component="..." drawable="zoom" name="Zoom - One Platform to Connect" />

Correct • Edited name: "Zoom"
<item component="..." drawable="zoom" name="Zoom" />

Names in different languages are separated via ~~. If the app name is localized, then the first name should be the one most commonly spoken by the people who will be searching for the icon (if in doubt, in English).

Wrong
<item component="..." drawable="hulu" name="フールー ~~ Hulu" />

Correct
<item component="..." drawable="hulu" name="Hulu ~~ フールー" />

If the first 3 characters of the app name contain letters not from the English alphabet, then it's worth adding the transliterated name.

Wrong
<item component="..." drawable="lansforsakringar" name="Länsförsäkringar" />

Correct
<item component="..." drawable="lansforsakringar" name="Länsförsäkringar ~~ Lansforsakringar" />

Drawable

Should contain letters from the English alphabet and repeat the app name if possible.

Wrong
<item component="..." drawable="itaú" name="Itaú" />

Correct
<item component=..." drawable="itau" name="Itaú" />

If the app name starts with a digit, then the drawable should start with _.

Wrong
<item component="..." drawable="ninegag" name="9GAG" />

Correct
<item component="..." drawable="_9gag" name="9GAG" />

Adding an icon to Lawnicons

Here's how to add an icon to Lawnicons:

Prerequesties

  • Your icon in the SVG format, adhering to the above guidelines. The filename must use snake case (e.g. files_by_google.svg).
  • The package and activity name of the app.

Via icontool.py

Please check the icon tool guide for more information.

Via manual process

  1. Add the ready SVG to the svgs directory.

  2. Add a new line to app/assets/appfilter.xml (in alphabetical order, by the name attribute), and map the new icon to a package name and app's activity. For example:

      <item component="ComponentInfo{com.google.android.apps.nbu.files/com.google.android.apps.nbu.files.home.HomeActivity}" drawable="files_by_google" name="Files by Google"/>

    A general template is as follows:

    <item component="ComponentInfo{[PACKAGE_NAME]/[APP_ACIVITY_NAME]}" drawable="[DRAWABLE NAME]" name="[APP NAME]"/>

  3. Done! You're ready to open a pull request. Please set develop as the base branch.

Finding the package and activity name of an app

Using Lawnicons

  1. Install and open Lawnicons 2.10+.
  2. Tap "Request icons". The button appears when you are missing at least one icon. After that, our request form will open with a response ready to be submit.
  3. Submit the response. You can copy the submitted activities from our table (sorted by date).

Using adb

  1. Connect your Android device or emulator to your laptop/desktop PC that has adb installed (see this tutorial for more information) and open the app whose details you want to inspect, e.g. Telegram.
  2. Open a new Command Prompt or Terminal window and input adb devices.
  3. Finally, type the below-given command to get the information about the currently open application.

For Mac or Linux:

adb shell dumpsys window | grep 'mCurrentFocus'

For Windows:

adb shell dumpsys window | find "mCurrentFocus"

The part before the / character in the above image, i.e. org.telegram.messenger, is the package name ([PACKAGE_NAME]). The part after it, i.e. org.telegram.messenger.DefaultIcon, is the activity name ([APP_ACIVITY_NAME]).

Using 3rd-party apps

IconRequest app

  1. Download IconRequest: Google Play • GitHub.
  2. Launch IconRequest and tap one of the options:
  • UPDATE EXISTING — to copy packages with activities.
  • REQUEST NEW — to save icon images and packages with activities. This option is better if you are creating icons.
  1. Use the app toolbar to select the apps for which youʼd like to request or make icons.
  2. Copy, save or share.

Icon Pusher app

  1. Download the Icon Pusher app.
  2. Launch the app.
  3. Select the icon(s) you want to upload or select all by pressing the square in the top right. Then press "Send".
  4. View the packages with the activities for each app on the Icon Pusher website. Please make sure the drawable="[DRAWABLE NAME]" matches the icon SVG file name.

Contributing code

While adding icons is the main focus for most contributors, code-related contributions are welcome.

To build Lawnicons, select the appDebug build variant.

Here are a few contribution tips:

  • The app module contains most of Lawnicons' core code, while the svg-processor module contains the code that converts the SVGs inside the svgs folder into Android Drawables. Generally, the app module is where you should make most of your contributions.
  • You can use either Java or, preferably, Kotlin.
  • Make sure your code is logical and well formatted. If using Kotlin, see "Coding conventions" in the Kotlin documentation.
  • Set develop as the base branch for pull requests.
  • Significant changes to the UI should be discussed on our Lawnchair's Telegram group chat. Generally, we want to keep things clean and simple.