was the folder symlink icon removed for a reason?

[Doug Elkin]

Discovered this after updating my system nerdfont package. Nerdfonts recently released version 3.0.0, which now depends on octicons 18.3.

This may be an issue for nerdfont, or perhaps even the lsd command which I'm using that generates the nerdfont codepoints. I thought I would start here to see if maybe this was removed by mistake.

Before:

After:

[Fini]

The codepoints were assigned by Nerd Fonts.
That one icon replaces another is due to the fact that Nerd Fonts reuses the codepoint of dropped icons for newly added icons.

But anyhow, there have been more icons dropped, see the Nerd Fonts packaging logfile (but the be honest Nerd Fonts came from an ancient Octicons version):

Reading mapping file
Found 172 entries
Fetching octicons archive "v18.2.0.tar.gz"


Unpacking octicons archive
Found 574 svgs
Found 308 icons after de-duplicating

Renamed cloud-download -> download
Renamed cloud-upload -> upload
Renamed clippy -> paste
Renamed mail-read -> read
Renamed primitive-dot -> dot-fill
Renamed primitive-square -> square-fill
Renamed settings -> sliders
Renamed dashboard -> meter
Renamed trashcan -> trash
Renamed paintcan -> paintbrush

Missing octoface
Missing keyboard
Missing gist
Missing file-text
Missing file-pdf
Missing jersey
Missing radio-tower
Missing repo-force-push
Missing mail-reply
Missing arrow-small-right
Missing gist-secret
Missing no-newline
Missing arrow-small-up
Missing arrow-small-down
Missing arrow-small-left
Missing file-symlink-directory
Missing circuit-board
Missing watch
Missing text-size
Missing ellipses
Missing plus-small

Found 151 (of 172, missing 21) and new 157

Maybe I missed some renaming of the file-symlink-directory, but obviously I found no equivalent in 18.3.

[Fini]

Created a icon that mixes file-symlink-file and file-directory to get an adequately looking file-symlink-directory:

Left to right: file-symlink-file, newly created file-symlink-directory, file-directory

I could PR that icon, if Octicons is interested.

Edit:

Thank you for your interest in contributing to Octicons! We are currently only accepting submissions from GitHub staff and only include icons that are used in the GitHub UI.

Ok, no problem.
I guess this Issue is moot then. Obviously the answer to the question is: It has been dropped because it is not used/needed by the GitHub UI. Which is a very valid reason 👍 Anyhow, Nerd Font consumers will get the look-alike smuggled in icon I "designed" ;-)

[silverwind]

We could use such icon for Gitea as well, but we'd need a filled variant. A symlink to a directory currently uses file-submodule, but it's not ideal because that seems to be meant for git submodule directories. GitHub also currently uses the same icon for symlinked directories.

I'm not sure how feasible it is to add this bottom-left-to-center arrow to the filled icon.

A regular directory uses file-directory-fill:

[Natalya Shelburne]

Hey all, thanks for the comments! We'll take a look at this issue at an upcoming Octicons working session.

[silverwind]

I would also like to highlight a related bug on the GitHub UI:

https://github.com/silverwind/symlink-test

A symlink to a file should use file-symlink-file, not file-submodule, e.g. like this:

The directory symlink visible above should ideally use a new dedicated icon as mentioned, so it's distinguishable from git submodules which use file-submodule.

So in total, there should be 5 octicons:

• file (exists)
• directory (exists)
• symlink to file (exists)
• symlink to directory (new icon requested)
• submodule (exists)

[Gavin Nelson]

Hi everyone, thanks for the discussion here! The internal Octicons team has taken a look at the options and what was discussed here, and I think we will be shipping a file-directory-symlink Octicon to address this. Keep an eye out for it in the upcoming Octicons releases and let me know if this helps solve the issues being discussed here.