Icon assembler update - part 2

Published by Vlasta about 14 hours ago.

The icon assembler section of the Gallery has received another update. This time, it's not just visual tweaks; it's something more fundamental, something that has been requested for longer than some of you have been alive. After 13 years, it is finally possible for everyone to create and edit their own icon assemblers.

To start, you first need to upload all the parts you want to use. This is done on the media upload page. Once the parts are uploaded, you can move to the icon assembler editor page, where you’ll actually build your assembler.

In the editor, you can pick a name, description, and license, just like when creating a regular icon or cursor set. The main difference lies in defining groups and filling them with your uploaded parts. Parts can be moved into groups (or between them) using simple drag and drop. Unused parts are displayed in a panel next to the group list, so they're always within reach.

There are two display modes for groups: expanded and collapsed. You can expand or collapse individual groups, or use the buttons to expand or collapse all groups at once. Collapsed mode is useful when you need to reorder groups and want to fit more on the screen, while expanded mode comes in handy when moving parts around.

You can create new groups, delete them, or reorder them - also using drag and drop. Each group represents a layer of the final icon. When someone uses your assembler, only one part can be selected in each group. Each group should have a short descriptive name, so users can tell what part of the icon they're modifying.

Subgroups are also supported. They behave like regular groups, but have no names and their parts appear right next to parts of the previous group. This gives the illusion that multiple parts can be selected at once in that group. For example, in my pizza icon assembler, salami slices are using subgroup, so you can place more or less slices at once depending on your taste.

A valid assembler must have at least two groups, and at least one of them should contain multiple parts. You can mark parts as default (by double-clicking them or by clicking the pin button), which means they'll be preselected when a user opens your assembler. Every assembler must have at least two default parts.

Parts can now be PNG or SVG images. The recommended size is 256×256 pixels, but other dimensions are now also accepted - even non-square ones. What really matters is that all parts of an assembler have exactly the same size. Otherwise, the resulting icons may end up garbled, and not in an artistic way.

As usual, if anything looks wrong, try CTRL+F5 to force style and javascript refresh and report inevitable bugs.

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nibbler about 9 hours ago 0

Very welcome change indeed! I'll have to come up with something to design in order to test it out.