Re: [Usability] Re: close icon is misleading

[Rodney Dawes <dobey free fr>]

On Fri, 2003-09-12 at 08:08, Calum Benson wrote:
> The main issue right now is that there are loads of buttons in dialogs
> that don't have icons, and for which there is no appropriate icon
> anyway, and these just make the desktop look sloppy and unpolished. 
> Where we do have them, they can be somewhat confusing, e.g. the Close
> and Cancel icons are virtually identical as you and others have pointed
> out.

They are virtually identical because they are derived from similar
broken historical metaphors of the desktop.

> IIRC it's also a bit of extra effort to make the icons on 'custom'
> buttons themable, so some people haven't bothered, which compounds the
> problem.  (Not sure if this is still an issue or not).

Doesn't GTK+ 2.4 automagically do theming with the GtkImage stuff?
If not, it should. And if it does, that would solve most of these
issues. The main problem with theming things, I think, is the lack
of a real standard. There's this "Icon Theme" spec, that apparently
both GNOME and KDE use, but why can't I use KDE icon themes in GNOME,
and vice-versa? What we need it sto standardize the names of icons,
not just where the files go.

> At the end of the day, if they're really so useful, you have to ask
> yourself why no other major desktop bothers to use them...

It's not that no other major desktop bothers to use them on dialog
buttons. They aren't used on ANY normal buttons (unless of course,
you used Borland, which has some ugly icons on their buttons). Or,
perhaps rather than asking why they don't use icons on buttons, ask
yourself why we do. KDE seems to be *much* more inconsistent on what
buttons use icons. I guarantee that GNOME is often chosen over KDE,
on a subconscious level, simply for the fact that it has nice icons
in the buttons, and they are consistent. Not that it's a major factor,
but it definately plays a role, and it makes the desktop look MUCH
better, and just different enough from other desktops.

-- dobey

(Pardon use of the word "desktop", as it is also a broken historical
 metaphor which needs to die.)