iconfu - icon editor and library

Thanks for the link, soundsop. Iconfu is a pixel-oriented icon editor written almost entirely in javascript - ie no flash or flex. It uses <canvas> heavily so no Internet Explorer either, sorry microsoft (and google's ex-canvas doesn't do the trick, it doesn't have all the features iconfu needs).

In a previous life I developed web applications at a bank and occasionally we needed icons. Finding the right icon was next to impossible, and MSPaint was our only option for drawing. Most frustratingly of all, in many cases all we needed to do was take a little "adjective" icon (a miniscule '+' or '!' for example) and overlay it on an icon we already had ... not possible.

I figured there had to be a better way, so I quit my cosy job to make iconfu. Technically, it does almost everything I'd want an icon editor to do - especially drawing a given icon on top of another icon. And drawing icons, pixel-by-pixel if necessary. There are some neat features I'd like to add - layers, more HSV controls, multiple parallel edits for example - but not yet. Financially ... um, I'm not sure how to put this ... my family has been very helpful.

I admit I'm biased, but it looks like iconfu is the best online icon editor out there. I haven't figured out how to turn it into cash, yet. HN ideas would be greatly appreciated.

There was some discussion at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=636388 earlier today about the concept of an online icon editor.

For better or worse, I wrote a blog about your site. Hope you don't mind the critique. :) http://slapstart.com/2009/06/iconfu/

I don't know why people would make web applications that entirely depend on canvas + js instead of using flash because it just shrinks your potential userbase due to the number of IE users out there. In contrast flash player is installed on like 99% (?) of all computers out there.

Until HTML5 gets wide-spread adoption I guess.