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A History of Icons
John H. Doe writes "The GUIdebook has a great page illustrating the history of icons. Of course, they have the Lisa/Mac/OS X paths, but there's the Windows progressions, along with entries for NeXT, OS/2, BeOS, and yes, Linux. Would you call it progress?"
I know on my Amiga 500 I used to draw icons in Icon Editor, and it was pretty cool. I too had some real beauties. I miss Workbench, it was pretty sweet.
Where's my flaming server icon?
I think it's about time that slashdot AUTOMATICALLY posted mirrors for the static pages they link to. Either that or stop posting links to crappy little servers that can't handle the traffic!
People that believe in their opinions don't post AC.
There are plenty of free icon editors out there.
Thing is, there are bajillions of free icons out there too, so we've never wasted time drawing our own.
Nobody cares much about them anyways, they only care if the button the icon is sitting on works when they click it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Hard to say whether it's progress, since I can't access TFA. However, I will say that the MS/Windows habit of trying to iconify every possible command is not progress. Some things simply cannot be conveyed via a 12x12 or 16x16 (or whatever the res is) pictogram.
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
While I can't read the article as the server is being slashdotted, I can't help feel that icons, for the most part, have stayed the same since their invention. Sure, we have icons that can be huge, have millions of colors, and have cool transparencey effects, but for the most part, Icons have remained a picture that represents an object or action. The only real innovation that I can think of when it comes to icons are ones which convey information as well as symbolize actions/items. While I'm not familiar if this exists on other icons, it's pretty easy to see on a number of iApps on OSX. For example, Mail's icon shows you how many new messages you have, iCal shows the current date, and when you're downloading files with Safari,the download icons have little progress bars on them, I love the idea of icons providing information to me realting to their particular application and hope to see that implimented more on other systems,
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
Yeah, screen-sized icons in a whopping 4 colours! (which also were the WRONG colours if you deviated from the standard Workbench theme)
Then we had about 3 different icon-enhancement sets, and the ugly MUI won...
But I want a decent icon editor and a pointer editor too!
I miss the pointer editor from OS/2Warp...
How hard is it to use coral links? Editors - why aren't you automatically append ".nyud.net:8090" to any url? How hard is that, really?.
Sigh...
Stupid icons are a bit of a bugbear of mine. So often it would be more clear to simply have some text telling you what the button is/does, rather than an abstract, highly coloured blob. I like this little quote from an interview with Richard Stallman:
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I used a word processor once. Basically I was at a hotel, and I had to type something and get it out, so I used a computer there. And it was running some word processor, which might have been Microsoft Word, I don't know. On the screen there were lots and lots of cryptic icons, whose meanings I couldn't begin to understand. If they had been English words, I might have had a chance.
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I used to have some beauties on my Amiga, and they could be any size I liked, up to the whole screen if that was your wish.
Was this a *good* thing? IIRC, Amiga programs came with lots of oddly-shaped icons that frequently *were* a large portion of the screen-size.
I'm sure it's nice for the designer's ego, but massive icons aren't that great from a usability point-of-view.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I find them better than most of the icons included in the article.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
I'm not sure I would call everything that has happened to icons progress.
Now that icons are commonly 24 bit color or more and use complex shading and styles they are often more difficult to identify at a glance than 2-color monochrome icons. (Icons should always be capable of being represented as a 2-color monochrome icons to ensure they have enough visual contrast)
And with all of the varying styles these days, if you don't make your icons specific to each operating environment then they stick out like sore a thumb.
The days of 16-color icons were probably the best because you could make a decent icon without having to be an artist or having an expensive paint program.
It still boggles my mind how many people choose bad icons for their products. I currently have the joy of working with a particular software product where many of the different configuration tools all have slightly different pictures of little computer... looking things with some kind of network dealy around them, and I keep getting them all mixed up. Of course part of the problem is that the programs aren't very well organized to begin with and the fact that they keep changing the program names in each version proves that.
Anyway, it is important that any application have a clear distinct purpose, a good icon to reflect that purpose and then to stick with it as people learn what it symbolized.
Remember, Icons literally become a language to people!
Speaking of Amiga, it is a pretty damn important system to be omitted in such a comparison. I don't know what that comparison professes to be (only seen the one mirrordot page), but AmigaOS had a very much working GUI...in 1985. Colour too, of course. I bet the other icons were to embarrased and kicked it out. ; )
So sad that most of the few people who know about it think it was all about gaming. On the other hand, it's a nice chart, so I shouldn't just complain I guess.
Yes, it was a good idea.
Unimportant, but maybe required at some point, files/folders could have small icons.
Important files (e.g., the application itself) would havea big icon. They'd also have a location in the window that was easy to get to, e.g., the centre.
Files you never need to see had no icon, and you'd have to select the option to view all files to see them.
A good use of Fitt's Law.
A neat step forward in Iconography for windows would be the ability to use alternate image formats. Time for the 'ICO' to go, yes, I know its a special format, multiple resolutions, color schemes yadda yadda.
Even though it begs for abuse, support for an animated GIF as your desktop icons could be fun.
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
Frankly, RMS is not one who should be talking about intiutive interfaces.
NO SHIT! Clicking a picture of a disk to save is a lot more intuitive than typing control-x, control-s. And if you can't figure out that the disk is for saving, you might think... hey, "file" might do things with my file, I'll click that, and hey look here it says "save", I wonder if that saves things
Hell, I even like emacs, but Stallman criticizing user interfaces is like Carrot Top criticizing fine theater.
1st) it's hard to mirror, if the target URL has been slashdotted prior to CoralCDN-mirroring it...*but you knew that*
2nd) ... and it's also hard to mirror a target URL if CoralCDN has been slashdotted, too. [CoralCDN in my eye's is still a quite a 'green' project (needs more exposure to grow), but it sure has got potential of becoming something great!]
3rd) .. or it could be something with your (closest) node ... or something
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.