This alternative, unofficial icon was designed for XTerm (the terminal emulator for the X Window System (X.org)) as an alternative to be available for some users and desktop theme designers.
One of the advantages of this logo is that it is terminal-friendly, so it can be printed to stdout.
The combination of the letters X and T is retained from Thomas Dickey's original XTerm icon because it makes it easy for computer users to identify this application in any desktop menu.
This icon epitomizes the UX of Text UI. The visual design of this icon was developed based on a screenshot of these letters and colors in an XTerm window. The font used in the logo is the font that the logo author uses in his XTerm. The proportions of the letter sizes and block cursor were approximated within the constraints of the pixel counts that are required for the respective icon sizes in pixels. This is what XTerm users can see in an XTerm window. This icon is designed to help Xterm users visually associate a desktop menu item with the exact user experience of using XTerm. At the same time, this icon is designed to help computer users, who have not used XTerm before, visually associate a desktop menu item with using a terminal emulator in general.
The black-and-white background of the icon ensures it gets spotted easily and fast and due to its contrast is distinct and visible in both light and dark desktop themes. The back-and-white background should go well with any grayscale or colorful desktop theme. Some users can customize the background colors as described further here if their desktop supports selecting a custom icon for an application.
The left half of the icon shows a capital black letter X on a white background that represents the block cursor. Inclusion of the letter X communicates the short designation of the X Window System (X.org). Some users can customize the color of the letter X as described further here if their desktop supports selecting a custom icon for an application.
The right half of the icon shows a light-green letter T, T for Terminal, more specifically for the T in XTerm, on a black background that is the frequent background of a terminal window. The light-green color of the letter T represents the support for 256 colors in XTerm. Some users can customize the color of the letter T as described further here if their desktop supports selecting a custom icon for an application.
The simplicity of the logo is meant to represent the minimalist thought that Thomas Dickey put into the XTerm design.
Tool: Inkscape
Font: monospace regular
RGBA colors in Inkscape:
- White background:
ffffffff - Letter X:
000000ff - Letter T:
afff00ff - Black background:
000000ff
File formats:
Inkscape SVG(source format)PNG(converted from theInkscape SVGfile)XPM, X PixMap (converted from the PNG file on https://convertio.co/png-xpm/)
Icon sizes:
- 1024×1024 px
- 512×512 px
- 128×128 px
- 48×48 px
- 32×32 px
- 24×24 px
- 16×16 px
WARNING: This procedure is yet to be tested and updated after testing.
The icon files are provided in this repository so that you can customize the colors in the XTerm icon for your desktop or desktop theme if you want to.
Inkscape SVG is kept intentionally to allow you a smooth editing experience using Inkscape.
- Download the
.svgfile from this repository. - Open the
.svgfile in Inkscape. - Edit the colors and save the changes.
- Optional: To convert to PNG, open the
.svgfile in Inkscape > File > Export PNG Image (Shift+Ctrl+E) > Image size 96 pdi > Export. TIP: If the default image-viewing application in your desktop smoothes the pixels automatically by default when you open the.pngfile, you can preview the.pngfile in GIMP. - Optional: To convert to XPM, open the
.svgfile in GIMP > File > Export (Ctrl+E) > X PixMap image > rewrite.svgas.xpmin the file name field > Export. - Select the edited, locally saved file as the application icon for XTerm.