A History of Icons 400
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?"
Rolling your own (Score:5, Interesting)
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. IIRC they were easy to draw with something that came with the operating system.
I'd like to take some of my raytracings and make them icons. Any ideas where to start?
Darn my dyslexia. At first glance I thought it said "A History of Loons" and thought it was something biographical about slashdot.
Re:Rolling your own (Score:5, Informative)
That's because the Windows .ico format is a complex meta-format with the capacity for multiple icon sizes and color depths. Paint Is just a rudimentary application like notepad and has never been the target of much improvement by MS.
The best Windows tool for editing icons is Microangelo. There is a shareware trial version available.
Re:Rolling your own (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rolling your own (Score:4, Funny)
It shows the firefox shagging an IE icon instead of the world. :)
Re:Rolling your own (Score:5, Interesting)
Artist (aka not me) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rolling your own (Score:3, Funny)
Photoshop isn't a place to get your pix developed.
Paint Shop won't sell you a gallon of white latex
Word would like to have a word with you.
Neither is PowerPoint powerful in the hands of most users, or good at making points
The GIMP, at leas[tt], *IS* "gimpy", The UI drives me nuts!!!!!!!
Life is full of disappointments. Icons are the LEAST of my problems.
Re:Rolling your own (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Rolling your own (Score:3, Informative)
* - Altorught this version is known as "SVG", the icons are still in PNG format, the SVG files will be relased once the support for the format improves in KDE.
Not SVG. And Jimmac doesn't agree with you [musichall.cz] anyways.
Re:Rolling your own (Score:3, Interesting)
http://ark42.com/freeimage/alphahlp.exe [ark42.com] is a nice little free command line utility that can:
Re:Rolling your own (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Rolling your own (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Rolling your own (Score:2)
Re:Rolling your own (Score:3)
Re:Rolling your own (Score:5, Informative)
I think that says it all.
Re:Rolling your own (Score:3, Informative)
When you're dealing with applications that have hundreds of icons (think about MS Office) tools like Icon Composer just don't cut it.
-ch
Re:Rolling your own (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe, but where is it all documented? I looked all around in its menus and meagre Help stuff, and couldn't find a thing that let me do any image editing at all. I could load images from iPhoto, but I couldn't find even a way to do a bit of cropping. All it seems to allow is loading images from other apps or files, and has no actual "composing" ability at all.
From the name "Icon Composer", I was expecting something that would let me edit individual pixels and perform at least
Re:Rolling your own (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Rolling your own (Score:5, Informative)
It turns out that Windows can read BMPs as ICOs. Just make a BMP of the right size (16x16, 32x32, or 64x64) and rename the extension from
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As for my most used icons: Giving all my hard disks a icon with the drive letter on it. Makes using a tool bar (I have a "goto" toolbar that links to every drive and a few important folders) easy to locate which drive is which (I only have 6 partitions/hard drives on my windows box).
Re:Rolling your own (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Rolling your own (Score:5, Interesting)
There was a Slashdot article posted some time ago where Steve Jobs was quoted as saying (way back when, and I paraphrase) that Bill Gates never understood the concept of design.
Despite the overhaul made for the XP interface, much of the same crap found on NT, 2K, etc. can be found on XP, and the inconsistencies aren't limited to icon choices.
As for the icon editor recommendation, unless it's capable of replacing the icons buried in innumerable
But that's just an opinion. I have otheres, of course.
Re:Rolling your own (Score:2, Insightful)
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...
Re:Rolling your own (Score:5, Informative)
I design the icons in .png then convert them to .ico with png2ico [winterdrache.de]
works both on *nix and windows. You can also add several different image sizes in the icon file you make with this program.
Re:Rolling your own (Score:3, Informative)
Website: http://www.mindworkshop.com/ [mindworkshop.com]
Price: $44.95
I also have the GIF Construction Set, which is great and all, but I'm just as likely to use some of my other graphics tools to create GIFs, or just
Re:Rolling your own (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.microangelo.us/
Re:Rolling your own (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Rolling your own (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Rolling your own (Score:3, Informative)
And, to be fair to windows, it lets you hide system files (though I don't).
Re:Rolling your own (Score:5, Funny)
Well, when you consider all of the things that icons do, they certain are worth the money you spend on the icon editor.
Have you ever clicked on an icon? You click on an icon and, bammo, there's a big spread sheet or email program on your screen or something. Icon editors must be complex and expensive to accomplish that. Seeing all of the amazing things icons do, it is the one software expense that the guys in purchasing will have no problem approving.
On an unrelated note, being a manager of a large software development team, I had been wondering why you techies like Dilbert so much. I have a big informative staff meeting. Afterwards, the techies gather around to pick the Dilbert that matches the meeting. I don't get it.
Re:Rolling your own (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Rolling your own (Score:4, Informative)
Thats not true. ICO files have 2 channels per image (an XOR mask and an AND mask) plus other data different from BMP, such as the number of sizes and colors in the
Re:Rolling your own (Score:3, Informative)
Deja Vu (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Re:Deja Vu (Score:3, Informative)
Orthodoxy Sunday (Score:5, Interesting)
The dominant theme of this Sunday since 843 has been that of the victory of the icons. In that year the iconoclastic controversy, which had raged on and off since 726, was finally laid to rest, and icons and their veneration were restored on the first Sunday in Lent. Ever since, that Sunday been commemorated as the "triumph of Orthodoxy."
Orthodox teaching about icons was defined at the Seventh Ecumenical Council of 787, which brought to an end the first phase of the attempt to suppress icons. That teaching was finally re-established in 843, and it is embodied in the texts sung on this Sunday.
Whoa, deja vu. (Score:2)
-How much like it, was it the same story?
-Might have been, I'm not sure.
A deja vu is usually a glitch in the
Re:Deja Vu (Slashdotted) (Score:3, Funny)
Amiga Icons (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Amiga Icons (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Amiga Icons (Score:2)
Re:Amiga Icons (Score:5, Interesting)
- Arbitrary size
- Could change image when clicked
- Possible arbitrary placement
This was making for some interesting applications. Like, the game Heimdall had screen high and half-screen wide icon of the character with a warhammer, when clicked the character was slamming the hammer down. I would add a tiny, 5x5px icon placing it over corner of Filemaster 2.2 icon just to launch Filemaster 2.0 in case it was needed (just like small "arrow down" in corner of "back" of Firefox)
There were tools converting pictures to icons. You could tile icons being parts of bigger image over some area, making a "clickable image". Clicking on directory ("drawer") icon was "opening the drawer", there were also many other cool "mini-anims" like hydraulic press "compressing" the package for a compressor program, a floppy multiplying itself for file copy etc.
Windows was a BIG step backwards from Amiga icon functionality. That step was never undone. Now all leading OSes have single-image, fixed-size icons.
Re:Amiga Icons (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, the multiple images were nice. HOWEVER... we have enough problems under Windows with stupid non-standard GUI flashy crap, without allowing those same aesthetically-challenged cretins to design icons that take up three-quarters of the screen.
I'm sure those assholes would make hideous fully-
Re:Amiga Icons (Score:3, Interesting)
Now all leading OSes have single-image, fixed-size icons.
Well as far as fixed sized goes, yo've obviousy never used Gnome or KDE with SVG icons. And icons in the Dock of OS X can be animated, likewise the systray in windows.
Re:Amiga Icons (Score:3, Informative)
Windows was a BIG step backwards from Amiga
Brother, you couldn't have said it better:
Google Cache (Score:2, Informative)
google IMAGE cache (Score:2)
cached thumbnails [google.com]
Unfortunately the site is ./ed so it will not do much good to actually click on any of the thumbnails. The good news is that so many of the thumbnails are of icons that in effect the cached thumbnails are essentially full-size :)
Enjoy...
Re:Google Cache (Score:5, Informative)
History of Icons? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmmm.... (Score:2, Insightful)
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!
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Heard of Google Cache? (Score:2)
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:2)
Slooooooow Server... (Score:5, Funny)
my favorite icon (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:my favorite icon (Score:5, Informative)
Icons? (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdotted to hell.
Full article text! (Score:5, Funny)
progress? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:progress? (Score:3, Insightful)
And I will say that the Slashdot habit of blaming everything you don't like on Microsoft is also not progress.
Funny how in one article everyone's like "Apple is teh cool, they invented EVERYTHING and Microsoft just copied them", and then as soon as someone percieves something Apple popularised - like using icons for everything and deprecating the command line - as "bad", they blame Microsoft for it!
Apple ar
Re:progress? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:progress? (Score:2, Interesting)
There are several toolbars full of tiny icons that don't really mean anything to you unless you've used the program before. Most Apple apps, however, have one or two toolbars of big, clear icons
So, it's a choice between:
A -- lots of functions, but you have to actually learn something before you can use them fluently
B -- a small number of functions, but with biiig pretty pictures
I'll pick A.
Re:progress? (Score:3, Interesting)
A -- lots of functions, but you have to actually learn something before you can use them fluently
B -- a small number of functions, but with biiig pretty pictures
I think you missed a key point of the grandparent post - That on may OSX applications the "small number of functions with biiig pretty pictures" are the icons visible on the default toolbars and the ADDITIONAL functionality is available through the menu system and keyboard shortcuts.
I think it would be very difficul
Re:progress? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:progress? (Score:4, Insightful)
Some things simply cannot be conveyed via a 12x12 or 16x16 (or whatever the res is) pictogram.
Tell that to the Chinese.
Re:progress? (Score:2)
That is, indeed, a terrible idea. We have menu bars for a reason.
Re:progress? (Score:2)
This screenshot [canberra.edu.au] is an example of Microsoft Word and its 16x16 buttons. Although most people can recognise the page icon for New, floppy disk icon (with the flap the wrong way round, too!) for Save, there are inexplicable little things like a set of tools, a clipboard with a tick on it, and a padlock. I could guess at what some of these mean, but without seeing the tooltip I couldn't be sure. It's a shame most applications have adopted this way of doing things.
Iconifying said comm
Re:progress? (Score:4, Informative)
There are six commands in that table that they icon-ified. They saved maybe a few pixels of horizontal space, but I don't think they were hurting for room anyways. And it's a big step backwards in terms of usability and intuitiveness.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So isn't it overkill to use an image to replace one single word? How is that supposed to make things any easier?
It'd be like
They're too "static" (Score:5, Funny)
you will laugh, but (Score:3, Informative)
The more things change... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's as if icons peaked 2-4 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
There are many more examples in the 2k->xp comparison. The address book, for instance. What was once clearly an Address book is now just an open book. The control panel, while not exactly clear in 2k, is now a Todo list! The desktop icon went from a desk with a letter in draft to a _vertical_ oriented surface.
Re:It's as if icons peaked 2-4 years ago (Score:4, Insightful)
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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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Re:It's as if icons peaked 2-4 years ago (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:It's as if icons peaked 2-4 years ago (Score:3, Interesting)
Most recent example is in Gnome control panel, I picked "Sessions", and I got a little window with a "Help" button. I hit that "Help" button and I got a page "Part I Setting Appearance and Personal Preference...". This document did a great job of describing *some* of the items on the Control panel, and w
Susan Kare - Icon Artist (Score:5, Informative)
Jimmac's GNOME icons (Score:3, Informative)
If you like icons, you may also want to check out Jimmac's ikony. [musichall.cz] You've probably seen a lot of his icons already, if you use GNOME. Really great stuff!
Coral links (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Coral links (Score:5, Insightful)
Either just figure out the url to the original content, stop reading slashdot at work and get some *work* done, convince your administrators/managers that you should be allowed to view content on a nonstandard port so you can spend more company time browsing the web, or leave and find a different job.
For a website which is devoted to shoveling up information for the most elitist of all computer-literate people [including some bright individuals], you'd think that somehow, a better system could be put into place than "bomb websites with loads of traffic, indiscriminantly".
Biblical Icons (Score:5, Funny)
If you like icons (Score:3, Informative)
Mirror on Archive.org (Score:2)
no icons in linux (Score:2)
Am I missing X icons or what? (Score:2)
While we wait for the flames to go out... (Score:2)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?u
Informative page, who says microsoft is 100% evil?!
Where are the default gnome icons? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad joke about icons (believe it or not) (Score:5, Funny)
Q. Once upon a time a mouse became trapped in a Russian cathedral; how did he escape?
A. He clicked on an icon and opened a window.
(I can't claim credit for that one...)
Re:Bad joke about icons (believe it or not) (Score:3, Funny)
Would you want to?
Joke? (Score:2, Funny)
A: Because they're both gay icons.
Man, that was lame... sorry.
Icon progess... (Score:4, Insightful)
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!
People Could I have your attention? (Score:3, Informative)
DISCLAIMER: This is off-topic, yet related.
Now that I have it, all I wanted to say is that we (the 'slashdotters') need to agree to some common courtesy.
Yes, I'm talking about the 'slashdot effect'.
That each time we, who post something, take the 'common courtesy' of at least Coral CDN [coralcdn.org] [mirror it].
And, no it's not that hard at all, either!
all that 'we' have to do is: http://redirect.nyud.net:8090/?url=${SUBSTITUTE_WI TH_URL} (see footnotes for more info...)
See, not that hard, really. If it wheren't I would have taken *this time to ask for you attention.
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*) ...and if you got 'Konqueror' create a (new) shortcut (like so): :P) :P)
'Searh provider name' == 'Coral CDN' (or enter your own name
'Search URI' == 'http://redirect.nyud.net:8090/?url=\{@} [nyud.net]'
'URI shortcuts' == 'cdn,mirror,mirr' (or, again, pick your own 'web shortcuts'
so, now all you konqi's have to do is 'mirr: ${URL} '
*) .. and for all you Firefox'rs, here's a searchplugin for you'vs too: coral.src [coralcdn.org] & coral.gif [coralcdn.org] [add them to your 'Mozilla Searchplugins'-dir]
*) .. and you with other browser, I don't know much about others to comment about. But if you use an enhanced browser (eg. not-IE :-) *blow below the belt, I know, I know =)*), you might be able to add it yourself, someway, like with 'Konqueror'. But I wouldn't know about it, so I leave this up to you'vs.
That's no fun (Score:3, Funny)
It instills a sense of empowerment and camaraderie among us, don't take this away from us ;-)
Re:People Could I have your attention? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:People Could I have your attention? (Score:3, Informative)
And mirrordot is slashdotted.
Any more ideas you can present to us in that super pedantic manner?
Re:People Could I have your attention? (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Truth is Beauty (Score:3, Interesting)
As icons have progressed, we've evolved some very stable patterns in using the files which they represent. But all that these icons communicate is that a file exists, in a given storage subdivision (folder), with some clues to its datatype. If half the time spent beautifying icons were spent making them work better, more interactive, more representational of the full state of the file and its context, we'd all be more productive.
Re:Truth is Beauty (Score:3, Informative)
But all that these icons communicate is that a file exists, in a given storage subdivision (folder), with some clues to its datatype.
I have three OS's in front of me right now. Two of them have icons more or less the same as in the 90's. One is different. If you want useful icons, you want OS X. My mail icon tells me how many unread messages I have. My minimized windows indicate what application they are associated with and a thumbnail of the window. My calendar app shows the date. Downloading files sho
A little credit to the inventor (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mirror (Score:2, Funny)
Oh, and we broke it
Re:Slashdotted (Score:3, Funny)