Do you want to change the appearance of gvSIG Desktop? Then keep reading …

One of the novelties included in gvSIG 2.4 version was a plugin that allows you to generate your own icon sets and apply them on the gvSIG Desktop interface. It allows to change the gvSIG style as well as to have icons in different sizes. Apart from the ‘classic’ icons theme (16×16 pixels) in gvSIG Desktop 2.4, from the Add-ons Manager we were able to install an icon set made by TreCC, available in 16×16 and 22×22 pixels.

Currently the gvSIG Association team is working on the next 2.4.1 version (already in stabilization phase) and in parallel in 3.0 version, a version that will bring important changes, including some improvements related to usability and aesthetics of the application. Related to this issues we have been reviewing aspects such as the icons distribution, icons used by several tools, etc. and the best way to do it has been to apply a new icon set, which will allow us to review the current status of this section in gvSIG Desktop as a proof of concept. And although the motivation has been to perform this test, the results is a new icon theme ready to be used in the application, that you can already find in the add-ons manager. The name of this plugin is ‘gvSIG Black‘ and the icon resolution is 24×24 pixels.

How to install it:

• Go to the ‘Add-ons Manager’ and mark the ‘Installation from URL’ option. Then search and install the ‘gvSIG Black 24×24 Icon Theme’ plugin. Once installed, we must restart gvSIG.
• From ‘Preferences’, ‘General’ section, ‘Game of icons’ subsection, we select ‘gvSIG Black’. We restart gvSIG and we will see that it has already been applied.
  If you want to return to the ‘classic’ icon set you just have to repeat the process, installing the ‘Classic Icon Theme’ plugin.

In addition we share a document that will help those who want to generate their own icon set to give their own appearance to gvSIG Desktop. The document contains the main icons that are used in your favourite GIS, with images of the 3 icons set currently available, and the path in which each icon is saved.

And if you want to see all the gvSIG Desktop icons, you just have to launch the tool that generates the corresponding report from ‘Tools / Development / Show icon theme information’.