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If I could, I would mod you up to 100. As far as I'm concerned, as long as the interface isn't butt-ugly, you can give me Win 3.1 icons for all I care.

Honestly, I'd take the Win32 GUI and icons over this ugly-ass glass and translucent sh!t they have going on now days.

The purpose is for those who want refinement, or have an artistic bone in their body ...

or are phone sanitizers...

Edited 2009-09-07 22:23 UTC

I fail to see how caring about and using 512x512 icons is any indication of refinement.

how is it not? 512x512 allows one to blow up icons to pretty big sizes (useful in many ways), particularly since OS X focuses much more on visual details, such as dock icons.

One of the things beaten into my head as a design student was (paraphrasing here):

"There is a difference between design and fine art. Design is communication using the visual language."

The icons may be look gorgeous, making them successful from an artistic point of view - but that doesn't make them successful from a design point of view.

The goal of an icon is to be, in a word, "iconic" - and not necessarily to serve as an illustration (also the reason why E.g. "road work ahead" signs have rough silhouettes and not a blueprint/photo of the actual work). Within that context, I think that whether or not an icon is identifiable at typical sizes (32x32, 48x48) is much more important than how nice it looks at 512x512.

Ascetics is more than just beauty, it is also about functionality and purveying a certain message which affect peoples productivity. Just as architecture is the embodiment of certain qualities - a particular style of icons, colours, desktop and so forth can produce an response which either increases or decreases productivity.

If the GUI itself is well laid out, the colours and icon design purvey a sense of optimism, inviting and a sense of using the computer being a pleasure rather than a chore - one can easily find that their overall productivity can increase as a result. Where as an purely functional GUI might get the job done it might also drive a wedge between the end user and the computer so that it turns into something they would rather not use.

Edited 2009-09-07 23:52 UTC

There is no way in hell icons need to be a megabyte a piece in order to purvey whatever subtle message you think people can't get their work done without.

And your gate for boarding is 12C.

If an icon is a megabyte in size then that would sit in the realm of the user experience which is part of the GUI experience; if the GUI effects the performance then it effects ones productivity and the usefulness of the tool.

It confuses me though that we're sitting at 2009 and neither Apple nor Microsoft have moved to SVG icons - something that was in use on SGI IRIX Indigo desktop almost a decade ago. There is no reason why the icons for the bundled command controls on both Windows and Mac OS X can't be replaced with SVG versions with no impact on compatibility since all the handling is sorted out behind the scenes and not the third party applications themselves.

Edited 2009-09-08 00:04 UTC

The problem with SVG or vector graphics in general is that you can't really predict how they will look like in 16x16 or 32x32. But when you design a pixel icon in 16x16 or 32x32, you have control over every single pixel, which is why they often look clearer.

Sadly, many icons today are already designed in a higher resolution and simply scaled down, resulting in exactly the same problem, but that's another story...

There's an interesting article on the Haiku Icon Vector Format, describing some of the reasons they didn't go with SVG - it's an interesting read:

http://www.haiku-os.org/news/2006-11-06/icon_facts

I'd like to see a real double blind scientific study actually measuring productivity with different sets of icons. Science, Man, Science! No need to argue based upon one's individual whims.

care to explain how one would go about conducting such a study? kind of hard to keep teh test subjects and test administrators ignorant of what is being tested.

I like to think that he's satirizing the type of people who, if you told them that "the sky is blue," would demand an in-depth analysis of the composition of Earth's atmosphere - along with a statistical analysis of which components allow/block which parts of the visible spectrum.

You mean like complaining for changing the font off a fourniture catalog?

You bet, what is wrong with these people?

Edited 2009-09-08 00:27 UTC

Get a grip.

"Everyone" reading this is concerned because they're interested. Is there something wrong with wanting or appreciating aesthetic refinement? Well, I suppose it's off to the gulag/"B" Ark for me and a lot of people then. ;-)

I'm vacillating on the Telephone Sanitizers.

The world is NOT in a bad shape today. Crime, wars, poverty hunger, disease - everything is at the lowest point since the beginning of history. Check the classics of world literature from any century, and there were always people to whom the past equivalents of beautiful icons were important. So please stop fussing.

I'm not sure how you can state that with any degree of certainty. And in any event, it is a very relative statement.

Of course, the (human) world has been in terrible shape since the dawn of human history, and likely long before that. The fossil record shows that we'd started breaking the backs of each other's skulls open with clubs by the time of Homo Habilis.

I'm amazed that you could look at the hunger, the pervading poverty, the sickness, the war, the pervading injustice, the widespread prejudice, and the gross, unnecessary, avoidable level suffering in this world... and claim that just because you think you have some reason to believe that things are a little better today, that the world is not in bad shape.

It boggles the mind.

Are you sure you are not just cherry-picking the good you see?

Of course you are. We all do. We'd all go mad otherwise.

Edited 2009-09-09 20:29 UTC

We have research, and we have the numbers. That is much more than what doomsayers have. For a quick intro, try e.g.
www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html
and
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_e...

Claiming the world is in a bad shape today implies it has ALWAYS been in a bad shape. The original statement, however implied that it has been getting worse lately. It has not. On the contrary, solid numbers say it is getting better. And that is an absolute statement.

Glad you have numbers that make you happy. Though I notice that you completely ignored the current day atrocities I listed as examples. But since you have numbers that say things are a little better, and because we now have such beautiful 512x512 icons, I guess those don't count.

Suffice it to say that people have always been had an astounding capacity to ignore, almost completely, injustices and atrocities which would make them feel uncomfortable if they acknowledged them, choosing instead to cherry-pick the good things they see around them, and convince themselves that that is the true reality. Of course, that's easier to do when one does not happen to be a victim of the ugliness.

So like I say... I hope your numbers and your icons make you happy.

Edited 2009-09-12 21:46 UTC

The world is NOT in a bad shape today. Crime, wars, poverty hunger, disease - everything is at the lowest point since the beginning of history. Check the classics of world literature from any century, and there were always people to whom the past equivalents of beautiful icons were important. So please stop fussing. "

I would ask that you please walk outside and have a look around you. Unemployment is currently the highest as it has been in more than 25 years and continuing to rise. The numbers of homeless and sick are increasing at an alarming rate. No new jobs are being created, yet thousands of jobs are being lost every day. You may live in some type of fallacy world, but the numbers themselves prove otherwise.

Oxygen only came about circa 2005. This was well after OSX and 'aqua' which I sure you can't deny was a heavy influence.

I don't think anyone's ever said otherwise - why does that matter?

its important to know where influences lie.

You can like the icons but they mimic the style and semiotics of the aqua icons of old. Apple have since moved away from its original aqua look but the influence still applies.

Take as an example the usage of the harddisk icon. The style is an (almost) exact match of that of OSX

As this artical was about comparing styles of icons and their depiction of functionality it seems pertinent to point out that Oxygen openly copied the style of Aqua

Edited 2009-09-08 13:17 UTC

You still haven't answered my question, which is: Why?

Intel may have created the x86 architecture, but I'm still going to use an AMD machine if they currently have the better implementation of it. I don't particularly care who came up with the basic ideas 20 years ago, beyond a limited interest in history.


That's really a harsh way of putting it - I would say they took inspiration from Aqua, and created their own icons in a similar photo-realistic style. We're sort of saying the same things, but I think the connotations are quite a bit different.

reading back over the comments I don't think our opinions differ wildly only our (my) wording :-)

The About page on the oxygen website describes the influence as follows

"So yes, OS X Aqua style is inspiring and a reference on several issues mentioned later. Oxygen, however, does not intend to copy anything but rather to collect ideas for the ways that people present visual metaphors with an eye not only on artwork but also on usability and improve on these ideas."

edit: removed english slang

Edited 2009-09-09 15:41 UTC

True. But I think you can say the exact same thing about proprietary apps. I mean, how many of those are innovative either? There's very little created these days that isn't based on something older in one way or another.


Maybe because this website is called OSNews, and is dedicated to more than just the main 2 operating systems. So your argument is that they should stop covering Linux completely, and become a Windows/Mac website? In fact, forget about the Macs - they've been around for decades, and they're still under 10%? Clearly completely worthless to talk about...

Edited 2009-09-08 02:01 UTC

Wow. Icon styles are "Innovations". Now I've seen everything.

P.S. If you're going to criticize something and want to be taken seriously, at least try to spell its name right.

That would make an interesting comparison indeed. Especially if more icons are compared.

same here. Well actually I've seen folders that are green, blue, blank and maroon. Rarely see a yellow folder.

My Name is haus.
I don't like Thom,
I'm a Mac fanboy
and he isn't
BTW, I don't like Thom

My name is Luka
I live on the 2nd floor
I live upstairs from you
Guess you might have seen me before. . .

…
Yes I think youve seen me before
If you hear something late at night
Some kind of trouble. some kind of fight
Just dont ask me what it was…

My name is Otto,
and I love to get blotto!

Control Panel (Classic) » Display » Appearance » Effects » Use Large Icons

That will use 48x48 icons.

HDD space aside (OMG, you lose megabytes of space!), you're a bit wrong about the rendering of smaller icons on OS X.

Smaller icons aren't just resized 512x512 icons. Instead, OS X system icons comes in (as it should) multiple versions, depending on the scale of the icon. Smaller icons have less details and a clearer shape outline. Larger icons can afford to have detail.

Yeah, I agree there is limited utility of a 512x512 icon, but if Apple's willing to throw money and there is clearly not a usability issue, who cares?

P.S. I use OS X at home, and Windows XP at work. I dearly miss the simplicity of icons in System 9/Windows 9x. Here's to hoping either or both Apple and MS go back to the age of minimalist, functionalist icons.

**** HDD space. Hell, they're .PNG, they're going to be less than that. I'm talking RAM. You have to load it into ram, and then perform scaling upon it (CPU/GPU) - and for what? 4K or less pixels rendered?


It was my understanding that all the new ones are NOT stored in smaller formats like they used to, and instead they use hardware mipmapping to scale them down... Unless I completely misheard that - it was supposed to be a compromise instead of SVG, which would consume even MORE resources in terms of rendering. (and be slow as molasses). If they are still doing the multiple sizes (I thought they weren't) then no big deal, what exactly was all this talk of 512x512 about again?


I still consider Win98 the pinnacle of user interface design - there have been little if any 'improvements' in terms of usability/functionality since then - in many ways we've had steps backwards all in the name of goof assed eye candy bull that drags my Q6600 down to behaving like a 1ghz P3.

Your system isn't using the 512x512 icons unless you're a total spastic who needs to see Icon View at maximum resolution.

Then again, those maximum Icons also support embedded links to videos, audio and documents.

They generate pixmaps from SVG's and cache them.

SVG? From a processing and memory standpoint it's a fat bloated pig. Advanced vector math, trigonometry, real-time anti-aliasing, multi-layer framebuffers... and no manual tweaking at small sizes for when the 'engine' doesn't match what you want for appearance.

Gee, advanced vector calculus and trig with a framebuffer for every layer/element so you can perform anti-aliasing... or a flat assembly bitblt... lemme think...

Which is why the SVG graphics are always cached, and just recalculated whenever something changes.

And look at the disk space report for the Tango icons in my distro:

7.2M scalable
1016K 16x16
1008K 24x24
936K 32x32

All together... maybe SVG isn't such a great idea? And maybe that's why hardly anything uses it?

I'm not at all familiar with Mac icons so that was new to me - it made me laugh

No doubt. Funny, I haven't had a BSOD since ... well, XP Home, pre-service pack 1 ... so ... about 7 years?

Edited 2009-09-08 14:00 UTC

And you don't work for and support and organization with 10,000 plus people. If you worked where I did you would see it once in awhile. Still, there are very few that I see now days. But then we re-image Windows computers before they get to that point most of the time.

Usually when we get them it is due to the hard drive running out of disk space due to an app trying to update and failing over and over and creating more temp files as it does.

Exactly.

In 2 to 3 years, we should start seeing monitors with much higher resolutions.

You're already seeing the beginning with phone screens having 160 & 200 dpi screens. Just imagine having a computer screen that is so sharp, it would be a real pleasure to work on.

But as a result all the images used in the computer have to be optimized for that. That can't happen all of a sudden. Both Apple & Microsoft (and Linux) are using larger icons and vector images so that they will be ready for the high-res screens.

Why would anyone need more than 640K of memory? That's just crazy talk.

(Hint: today's HD is tomorrows SD)