Here's a plan: Write Hyperion an email stating what you want them to do...
How about a better plan-- Icon Preferences!
yes. to the best of my knowledge the current icon library supports scaling of icons. so it should be possible to use this for displaying smaller ones if one likes to. still the target at one point should be really resizeable icons (= vector ones). isn't vista and w7 using those?
Here's a plan: Write Hyperion an email stating what you want them to do...
How about a better plan-- Icon Preferences!
Icon allready have preferences as part of Workbench prefs, you meen a button tab in GUI prefrences. Tricky though as Buttons are used in a varied range of applications, and contexted. There is no toolbar gadget as such under reaction (not unless it was added when I wasn't paying attantion).
If you will ask five people about icon styles you will get seven opinions.
1. The visualisation used for the new icons is my own individual style - love it or hate it, but I will hardly change it. I know that tastes are different but I also know that another well know artist in the Amiga community is working on an alternative set.
2. The new icon size is, as Ken allready mentioned, a tribute to the bigger screen resolutions available. As I said earlier: Having scaleable icons is not a solution - the system must also be prepared to use different sizes of icons.
3. Having system generated effects for icons is a nice feature, but you have to make shure it works in an acceptable way. There many, many aspects that have to be considered before implementing such a feature in a operating system and of course much work for the developers - it is easier to paint icons with the effect added.
4. Different icon states is a nice to have if the state of the icon is relevant (on/off) but when it comes to toolbar images my opinion is: Let the developer decide what is best. Reaction uses frames for toolbars that indicate the state and even as it is still just a wink when you press the button.
If you will ask five people about icon styles you will get seven opinions.
Fully agreed.
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1. The visualisation used for the new icons is my own individual style - love it or hate it, but I will hardly change it. I know that tastes are different but I also know that another well know artist in the Amiga community is working on an alternative set.
See, I wasn't talking about tastes. Of course you are the one to decide how your icons look I only suggested to reduce the usage of gradients because that lessens the contrast (and thus icons are harder to read): that is not a matter of preferences. You're absolutely free to accept/reject such suggestion.
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2. The new icon size is, as Ken allready mentioned, a tribute to the bigger screen resolutions available. As I said earlier: Having scaleable icons is not a solution - the system must also be prepared to use different sizes of icons.
Although I didn't comment on the subject until now, I think that using nicely interpolated icons for downscaling gives good results (but source icons must be big - say, 128x128 - of course).
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3. Having system generated effects for icons is a nice feature, but you have to make shure it works in an acceptable way. There many, many aspects that have to be considered before implementing such a feature in a operating system and of course much work for the developers
Sure: as I said, it's a system-wide change. It is part of the overall GUI design.
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- it is easier to paint icons with the effect added.
I don't agree: pre-painted alternate states double the work to anybody who wants to draw an icon (and you are one of those who are most affected by this ) and leads to inconsistent look, because anybody will draw the icons the way he/she prefers/can (just as an example: when I created the icons for BOH, I tried to stay consistent with the usual glow look, but I couldn't make it exactly like yours or others').
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4. Different icon states is a nice to have if the state of the icon is relevant (on/off) but when it comes to toolbar images my opinion is: Let the developer decide what is best. Reaction uses frames for toolbars that indicate the state and even as it is still just a wink when you press the button.
Trying to clarify what I meant again: I was sort of advocating frameless-buttons toolbars because the resulting GUIs are cleaner and easier to use. The double-state considerations were based on that. So, I was saying: in the case of frameless-buttons, a calculated alternate state is desirable. Otherwise (i.e. in case of framed buttons), single-state icons are OK with me (better than double-state ones, indeed). As for leaving the choice to the programmers, that's generally a good thing to do, but when it comes to GUIs, consistency has to be kept in mind. Right now, if there's one thing I don't like about AmigaOS is the GUI mess (which I don't blame anybody for).
1. The visualisation used for the new icons is my own individual style - love it or hate it, but I will hardly change it. I know that tastes are different but I also know that another well know artist in the Amiga community is working on an alternative set.
See, I wasn't talking about tastes. Of course you are the one to decide how your icons look I only suggested to reduce the usage of gradients because that lessens the contrast (and thus icons are harder to read): that is not a matter of preferences. You're absolutely free to accept/reject such suggestion.
The new icons are mainly allready a result of user suggestions.
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2. The new icon size is, as Ken allready mentioned, a tribute to the bigger screen resolutions available. As I said earlier: Having scaleable icons is not a solution - the system must also be prepared to use different sizes of icons.
Although I didn't comment on the subject until now, I think that using nicely interpolated icons for downscaling gives good results (but source icons must be big - say, 128x128 - of course).
If you have a big icon with much details it will look very ugly if you scale it down. I have made several test which allways lead to the same results...
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- it is easier to paint icons with the effect added.
I don't agree: pre-painted alternate states double the work to anybody who wants to draw an icon (and you are one of those who are most affected by this ) and leads to inconsistent look, because anybody will draw the icons the way he/she prefers/can (just as an example: when I created the icons for BOH, I tried to stay consistent with the usual glow look, but I couldn't make it exactly like yours or others').
Ahhh, now I understand and I have to agree! From this point of view it is of course nice to have such a feature. But it is also a little hell for the icon artist as he has to guess how any icon will look with any effect.
The new icons are mainly allready a result of user suggestions.
I hope this doesn't mean that no other suggestion can be made So, here's one that crossed my mind right now: drop shadows altogether. They add little (if anything at all) and not having them not only saves you lots of work with the alphachannel of the normal state, but also makes it a lot easier to add the glow.
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If you have a big icon with much details it will look very ugly if you scale it down. I have made several test which allways lead to the same results...
Having too many details in icons is a mistake in first place: icons are supposed to be symbols immediately readable by the eye that convey few but clear pieces information; moreover, no matter the technique utilized (multi-size bitmaps, vectors, whatever) they will never look good at a small scale. Anyway, I'm curious... could you show an example of icon that does not look bad when scaled down?
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Ahhh, now I understand and I have to agree! From this point of view it is of course nice to have such a feature. But it is also a little hell for the icon artist as he has to guess how any icon will look with any effect.
Oh, well, it's the other way around: it's the effect that has to be chosen to suit as many types of graphics as possible. Then, once the effect (or effects, if the system is designed to support more than 1) is set in stone, artists also have the required information to draw effective icons. Just to make an example, if the glow we are used to was calculated on the fly, I guess no amigan would have a problem with it
The new icons are mainly allready a result of user suggestions.
I hope this doesn't mean that no other suggestion can be made So, here's one that crossed my mind right now: drop shadows altogether. They add little (if anything at all) and not having them not only saves you lots of work with the alphachannel of the normal state, but also makes it a lot easier to add the glow.
Suggestions are allways welcome! Even as this round is closed Drop shaddows are more important than you might think as they give the icon the 3rd dimention. As for shadows, glow effects and alpha channels: With most state of the art paint programs it is quite easy to add them with a handfull of mouseclicks!
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If you have a big icon with much details it will look very ugly if you scale it down. I have made several test which allways lead to the same results...
Having too many details in icons is a mistake in first place: icons are supposed to be symbols immediately readable by the eye that convey few but clear pieces information; moreover, no matter the technique utilized (multi-size bitmaps, vectors, whatever) they will never look good at a small scale. Anyway, I'm curious... could you show an example of icon that does not look bad when scaled down?
Your right, but it is not allways possible to make thing that easy. A good example are the Commodities in general as their function is not easy to visualize in a simple way. There several thesis about the recognition of icons. I like the one which says that just the colour and the general form of the icon is important, but on the other hand it is rather boring to paint red, green, blue, yellow and pink triangels, rectangles and circles You could generate a example by yourself by having a look at the Workbench preferences. Just play with size definitions of the list mode and have a look at the results. Ok, I have to say that the current scaling algorithm of OS4.1 is simple and the icons are not optimized for scaling, but you just asked for a bad result. Windows and even OS X are using icons in different sizes and just scaling between this sizes if needed. Please have a look at the links I posted earlier in this thread.
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Ahhh, now I understand and I have to agree! From this point of view it is of course nice to have such a feature. But it is also a little hell for the icon artist as he has to guess how any icon will look with any effect.
Oh, well, it's the other way around: it's the effect that has to be chosen to suit as many types of graphics as possible. Then, once the effect (or effects, if the system is designed to support more than 1) is set in stone, artists also have the required information to draw effective icons. Just to make an example, if the glow we are used to was calculated on the fly, I guess no amigan would have a problem with it
Your talking of one effect, so it would be ok, but that wouldn't be a real benefit as we allready have one effect provided by the icon.
Drop shaddows are more important than you might think as they give the icon the 3rd dimention.
Not really: they try to give a third dimension to the space they are in, but, IMHO, they fail, as backgrounds never follow their orientation - not to mention that they even worses the fact that not all icons follow the same perspective. Oh, well. I know I'm right, but I also know it's just me
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As for shadows, glow effects and alpha channels: With most state of the art paint programs it is quite easy to add them with a handfull of mouseclicks!
I know, but still it's more work.
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Your right, but it is not allways possible to make thing that easy. A good example are the Commodities in general as their function is not easy to visualize in a simple way. There several thesis about the recognition of icons. I like the one which says that just the colour and the general form of the icon is important, but on the other hand it is rather boring to paint red, green, blue, yellow and pink triangels, rectangles and circles You could generate a example by yourself by having a look at the Workbench preferences. Just play with size definitions of the list mode and have a look at the results. Ok, I have to say that the current scaling algorithm of OS4.1 is simple and the icons are not optimized for scaling, but you just asked for a bad result.
Yes, drawing meaningful icons is often difficult and requires more stuff that one would ideally want, but still they key is: keep it simple The fact that one has a large canvas (let's say again 128x128) does not mean that one should fill that space with all the imaginable details: icons must be drawn keeping in mind that they should be readable at small sizes as well. If icons were drawn with: * as few elements as possible; * clear shapes (which often means effective contrast); * few (no) eye-candy effects like reflections, transparencies, they would be easily scalable and readable (and, no, I'm not advocating coloured geometrical shapes ).
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Windows and even OS X are using icons in different sizes and just scaling between this sizes if needed. Please have a look at the links I posted earlier in this thread.
I know how they work (I have even recently prepared the BOH icon for MacOS), but the point is: having different sizes is useless unless one draws the icon at each specific size adapting its fundamental design; now, if one is able to draw a functional icon at - say - 16x16, what is stopping him from drawing the very same thing at 128x128? Of course at the bigger size he will be able to add antialias and little enriching touches, but still the icon, when downscaled, would look OK.
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Oh, well, it's the other way around: it's the effect that has to be chosen to suit as many types of graphics as possible. Then, once the effect (or effects, if the system is designed to support more than 1) is set in stone, artists also have the required information to draw effective icons. Just to make an example, if the glow we are used to was calculated on the fly, I guess no amigan would have a problem with it
Your talking of one effect, so it would be ok, but that wouldn't be a real benefit as we allready have one effect provided by the icon.
No, I'm also talking about multiple effects. And precisely to avoid the embedded effects of icons (language barrier, maybe?).
Hi @orgin ? Well, you guys looked like you were heavy in disagreement, so I made a suggestion. A good 'Preferences' to anything solves choices doesn't it?
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