Comments on: I’ve created a monster!

By: Bush

Bush — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 08:53:11 +0000

Delete this spam!

By: prometoys

prometoys — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 22:13:25 +0000

Hi,

first sorry, because I didn’t read the complete commentes. I think you are right to think about, when is the using of an icon correct and where it can be reduced.

I also think, unless every application and every enviroment use the same order for yes/no/cancel etc using of icons in buttons is helpful.

Another advantage of icons are to help people, who didn’t can read the text e.g. different language, illiterates, children.

By: The days are long at night » Blog Archive » Noisy icons

The days are long at night » Blog Archive » Noisy icons — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 14:46:06 +0000

[…] Some people have been pondering the idea of not showing any icons in GNOME application’s menus. These two guys are known to know what they are talking about so I gave it a try (icons are easily turned off in the preferences panel). […]

By: Ben FrantzDale

Ben FrantzDale — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 05:03:50 +0000

I agree with Tom Hinkle. I find it easier to scan for something by icon than by word. As an extreme example, consider the “rotate” menu on GIMP. I always scan for the arrow rotating the way I want rather than turn my graphical idea into text to compare with the text of the menu for “CCW 90°”. In general I find the fastest way to use menus for applications I know is keyboard accelerators.

One could argue the merits of menus long enough to need icons, but when menus get over a few entries long, I really feel icons make use faster.

By: Eddie Gonzalez

Eddie Gonzalez — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 10:59:17 +0000

If you’ve ever had to use a program that is only available in a language you can’t read what-so-ever (Like Chinese in my case.) Icons (and mnemonics) are wonderful. Especially for dialogs! I don’t think GNOME’s current use of icons looks bad at all and it has this wonderful side-effect of allowing someone who’s used a program in one language to do basic things in another.

By: Magnus Breder Birkenes

Magnus Breder Birkenes — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 20:11:03 +0000

Performance-wise, I agree. Running GNOME without icons in menus, on buttons etc. makes the system a lot more speedy.

But, for me, icons make the computer easier to use, because I have a visual handicap. When I see the symbol of an empty screen in my menus, I know that clicking that will start the terminal, and I react instantly without having to read the text (which can take time).

So, a good compromise can be to let the user choose, as of today, perhaps by making the non-icon way the standard one.

By: Mike Hearn

Mike Hearn — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 15:42:28 +0000

Am I the only one who thinks it’s nice to have icons in buttons just because it looks good? What happened to wanting aesthetically pleasing environments? I have posters on my wall, it’d reduce visual noise to remove them but I don’t want to …..

By: Random pixels » Blog Archive » A picture is a word aswell

Random pixels » Blog Archive » A picture is a word aswell — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 14:46:41 +0000

[…] I’ve tried tigerts idea, disabling icons in menus and buttons since a couple of weeks back now. Know what? It actually works really good, it also looks really clean. It felt a bit strange to begin with, but the idea is growing on me. […]

By: ra1n

ra1n — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 20:12:55 +0000

Just my two cents on OSX menus, yes they don’t have menus, but they have clear and easy to remember keyboard shortcuts on them, which are very easy to learn and speedup a lot working.
This is done with an easy trick, modifiers are icons let me explain, in the PC world we commonly have shift, ctrl and alt(sometimes called meta) modifiers and those labels are written on the keyboard, on a mac keyboard we have the same keys (alt is also known as option) plus command (or apple key) and every modifier has an icon associated to it (with the exception of ctrl which its represented by the ^ sign, but is labeled ctrl on the keyboard)
For common tasks,in this way, it’s very easy learn the shortcut, and simply forget of the menus

By: raven

raven — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 09:18:59 +0000

too much teh icons!

I fully agree. Another good example would be the current gimp. It’s also stuffed with icons but now it’s even harder to find what you need in those menus than it was before.