Changing Icons

The icons in Moodle are hideous.  I don't know how they have managed to design icons that look so 70s, the forum one in particular is horrible.

To change them we first have to find some replacements.  I used a set of icons call the Moodalis theme, but since I downloaded them the website seems to have changed.  You can try searching for them.  Or you can use Tango, Famfamfam or whatever you want.  The good thing about the Moodalis theme was that they were already arranged the same way Moodle icons are arranged.

However you access your Moodle server (I use FTP) you need to find /web/pix.  You will see a bunch of folders with single letter names which is where most of the icons live (note: I say most).  They are arranged thusly:

a – Icons that are not widely used

c – Calendar-related icons

f – File icons for different file types

g – Default user icons and thumbnails

i – General icons

m – Currency symbols

s – Smileys

t – General icons

u – User icons and thumbnails

y – YUI icons

As I say the Moodalis icons were all categorized in the same way to make it easy but whatever icon set you choose you just need to make sure the icon you want to use is name EXACTLY the same as the icon you want to replace, including the file extension.

So if you want to replace the edit icon:

With a new one:

Simply make sure your new one is called edit.gif and is 16x16 (most icon sets are) and overwrite the original in the i folder.  If you do manage to find a theme organised for Moodle, you would be better to overwrite the icons rather than the folder (i.e. copy new icons into i rather than copying a new i folder over the original one).  This is because, in the Moodalis theme anyway, there are more icons in the original Moodle set so overwriting a whole folder would leave you with some icons missing.

To see the new icons you'll have to clear the theme cache (Settings > Site Administration > Advanced Features > Appearance > Themes > Theme Selector).

...And the hideous forum icon is still there.

The forum icon lives in /web/mod/forum/pix.  Replace it in the same way.

The yellow question mark is still in operation too but I have yet to find where that resides.  It will be a case of changing these icons as and when you come across them.  There is talk of changing the icon set that ships with Moodle but who knows when that will be.