new icons ?

Hallo everyone,

I've right now downloaded Filer from os4depot.net and I was surprised to find new kind of icons.

The first time I saw such icons was with OWB. Where can we find this icons ? They are nice but with my resolution (1024x768) they are to big but it doesn't matter.

Thanks

Nic

@unimo

New OS4.1 style...

@Mason

Quote:
In the hope that it may be of some help, here's my personal opinion.
I preferred the less saturated colors you had before. If you are looking for better contrast, my humble advice is to reduce the amount of gradients, which is what causes readibility problems.
I realize you have already done a lot of work (which I thank you for), so I also understand that what I'm suggesting could demand some serious effort.
A nice thing I notice in filer is that icons have lost the double state: that not only saves you a lot of work, but was mostly useless, as the subtle changes were not sufficient to perceive the states difference - the different state should be obtained by some other effect calculated on the fly (like, f.ex., the glow).

saimo

@saimo

You should look a little closer if you think the filer icon has no double state, aprt glowing yellow the mouse pointer moves....

I like the new designs, just the size increase will be a minor problem for me, 21x48 < 1280 but 21 x 64 is > 1280 and that's the number of icon in my amidock, how can I choose which one to leave out?

@broadblues

Quote:
Sorry, I did not mention I referred to the toolbar icons (although the same suggestions apply also to the icons for Workbench )

saimo

@saimo

The filer never had double state images in the toolbar. To have a second state the code would have to be updated to load a second image for each button.

@orgin

Quote:
Let me clarify that I do *not* want pre-rendered double-state icons. I suggest that the alternate state is obtained programmatically, by some effect calculated on the fly (this is a system-wide suggestion, of course).

saimo

@saimo

Nah, I think it's enough that the toolbar button changes border type as it is now. Adding a second 'selected' image for each toolbar button doesn't really add anything to the user feedback, prerendeerd or not. It's quite obvious when a button is clicked or not.

@orgin

Quote:
Yes, true.
I must say "sorry" again because when I suggested the calculated alternate state I was rather thinking of a system-wide improvement involving other aspects of the GUI. I'll try to explain it better this time.

One thing that all GUIs should aim to is comfortable readability. One thing that impairs it is the clutter caused by useless elements. Button borders are often one of those elements. F.ex., a long time ago Workbench was improved by allowing the removal of the icon borders*. I wish Reaction moved in the same direction, just like other GUIs already did. Have a look at this screenshot, showing Filer and YAM side-to-side: which toolbar causes less strain to the eyes? Which is easier to read? YAM uses a MUI** class that I could configure so that buttons have no border, except for the currently pointed one. This is indeed the best button handling method I can find in modern GUIs (which, BTW, implement this feature even in a nicer way than that shown in the screenshot).
In such a context, it's easy to see why an alternate state is necessary - and that's what my suggestion was based on.

*Everyone is so used to such a thing that all the icons found in the archives are never frameless, because everybody uses the "no border" option in the Workbench prefs (I don't, so that's why I spotted this problem).

**Please note that I prefer Reaction over MUI precisely because it's generally simpler and also because MUI has troubles with consistency given the high number of variously-configurable third-party classes.

saimo

@saimo

"which toolbar causes less strain to the eyes? Which is easier to read?"

Subjective question. Personally I prefer buttons to be buttons and icons to be icons. They are two different things to me. One you click, the other you double click.

@orgin

Quote:
OK, let me reformulate it this way: which is more complex? Which is simpler? Which is busier?

Quote:
The usage difference you underline is true, but how much does it count, really? I mean, the context they are placed in tells immediately the user which is the action they react to. Moreover, the method I suggest does create a template around the pointed button.

saimo

We've been using the current icon size (46x46) for 10 years -- since back when 640x480 was considered a large display! The icons then took up a lot more screen real estate than the new 64x64 ones do today.

The new ones also look very, very nice -- it's amazing the amount of detail that can be added by just this small increase in size.

Plus, anyone who doesn't want to change can always revert back to the old icons.

On the Subject of the "buttons" -- I'm with Orgin on this one -- a button should look like a button, not a freestanding icon. However, they SHOULD have an alternate state (even a subtle one) -- this is Amiga, after all.

@saimo

"OK, let me reformulate it this way: which is more complex? Which is simpler? Which is busier?"

Irrelevant questions. I already stated which I prefer personally.

"but how much does it count, really?"

Another subjective question. To me it's everything.

@orgin

Quote:
Just to be clear: I don't discuss your personal preferences, neither I want you to change them.
That said, my question is not irrelevant because discussing these matters may help improving the GUI of AmigaOS, since the discussion itself could give more evaluation elements to the people that are taking care of it.
Moreover, the question is not subjective (as said in a previous post) because Filer's toolbar has more elements (namely, the button templates), which make it a bit more complex than a frameless-button toolbar.

Quote:
My question was followed by a few words that explained what it exactly meant - and it meant that the context icons are placed in tells immediately the user which is the action they react to and that the template created on the fly around the pointed icon helps even more in understanding its functioning in an unmistakable way - all of this, together, means that the functional importance (i.e., as the initial question colloquially said, how much it counts) of having frames around buttons in toolbars is basically zero (even the most unexperienced user after a couple of clicks would learn the difference between a button in a toolbar and an icon on the Workbench).
Edit (forgot to add the conclusion): this means that my question is subjective only if we consider users that just cannot come to terms with computers.

Quote:
You're perfectly entitled to your own preferences. But that's not what I was talking about.
In all honesty, I must say I'm under the impression that you're just defending the correspondence between a conceptual difference (which, BTW, I fully acknowledged since the beginning) and its rendering, without even realizing how useless such effort is. I say this both because you are an experienced user and a developer (hence I'm sure you would have no troubles using framess-buttons toolbars) and also because this discussion reminded me of a set of icons of yours which I didn't like because it brought back the button-like aspect of the old icons (here's a screenshot from you): if you didn't even notice the icons you drew yourself blurred totally the difference between icons and buttons (in the picture we can say which is which only by the context), why do you have problems now with frameless-buttons toolbars?

In a nutshell, I'm just saying that toolbars made of frameless buttons (that do get a frame when pointed) cause less clutter (thus improving the usability of the GUI) and are functionally valid. That kind of toolbars is not an invention of mine and is widely and successfully used in many GUIs. I wanted to stress this aspect in the hope that some AOS 4 developer would consider it. That's all. I never wanted anybody to change his/her own tastes.

saimo

@saimo

Wow you like to waste a lot of time on this issue. This must be really important to you. I can't even bother to read 2 lines of all that.

Here's a plan:

Write Hyperion an email stating what you want them to do.

If nothing happens, ohh well, bad for you I guess.

@Thread

For what it's worth, years ago I thought these "icon" buttons were a little bit too big, and it was the case on all platforms and in many software packages. It's only in the past couple of years have the likes of Firefox, IE etc. changed to having smaller buttons, which I'm more comfortable with. I tried the new theme on OWB and straight away changed back to the smaller buttons. Maybe this is the way it has to go, and that's fair enough, but it's a shame not to at least have the option of smaller button images - especially for an OS or apps which might one day think about running on a PDA etc.

@Daedalus

I think we'll cross that bridge when we get to it, eh? :)

Simon

@Rigo

LOL, probably wishful thinking alright ;)

@Daedalus

Quote:

The size of the images in the new theme (OS4) are the same as the old theme (AISS), namely, 24x24.

The Davide Calaminici images are larger; but I don't think anyone is talking about those. The larger ICONS (not toolbar images) are part of a new set that Mason is working on, and hopefully will soon have completed.

@orgin

Here's a plan:
Write Hyperion an email stating what you want them to do...

How about a better plan-- Icon Preferences!