twitter/bootstrap — Issue #2252: Icons in Bootstrap
Author: johnnypeck
Created: 2012-02-25 05:15:35+00:00
State: open

NOTE ( This is practically a duplicate of my response to someone elses pull made in the past few weeks regarding icons. I figured we should really get the discussion started. My opinions are my own and subject to change. )

Color, visual size and other issues brought up by the community could be irrelevant if bootstrap used something like Raphaëljs for icons. MIT licensed, which is great, and a very nice starter set for the community to begin creating from. I'm sure the creator would be stoked if a prominent open source project such as Bootstrap were to bring it's community to contribute and further his work. It may be possible to set glyphicons as a fallback somehow if needed and js were disabled but of course, if js is disabled most sites these days wont work much anyhow so I'm not certain that is a relevant argument but I'm sure cases exist for it.

The icon library included in bootstrap is wonderful work but feels like an advertisement of sorts and does not seem to fit with the principles of collaboration Bootstrap has grown to endow. Even if we move to Raphael I would love to see the Glyphicons ported and would gladly pay for them. Design is copyright-able even if it is a path declaration in js/svg/whatever! The icons are great and I'm personally waiting for the go ahead to purchase and integrate the full license for Glyphicons but why not do everyone a favor and create an icon set that's truly for the masses, scalable, usable, cross platform and could be tailored to exacting needs on a case by case basis. No derivatives for the icons of a web design toolkit is rather unnerving.

Relevant link: http://raphaeljs.com/icons/

( From the website )
"Raphaël currently supports Firefox 3.0+, Safari 3.0+, Chrome 5.0+, Opera 9.5+ and Internet Explorer 6.0+."

I have not personally verified the browser compatibility stated on the site. Checking the icons at the site out on my Samsung Nexus Prime mobile phone with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with both the stock browser and Chrome looks beautiful at any zoom level. Firefox 10+ and Chrome on Ubuntu (gnome) and Linux Mint are just fine. Firefox and Chrome on Windows 7 seem fine and as I recall IE 9 was peachy keen as well last I tested it a few weeks ago.

Hopefully a good discussion of the merits can begin. I think this issue deserves some attention going forward and better sooner than later. If the stats are any indication, there is a huge opportunity here.

+1 for an open, forward looking icon kit that's willing and able to be molded for any case.

Cheers