nsw@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (Neil Weinstock) (08/10/89)
In article <16163@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> Vince Lee writes: [ ... ] > >One of the biggest problems with the Amiga is that most of the developers >I know have absolutely NO artistic talent. The Amiga Topaz font and >"insert workbench" hand are constant painful reminders of this. Although >the Amiga is a great machine, what most people see is the incredibly >cheezy-looking workbench with its C64-looking icons. When they compare >this with the sleek, professional-looking Mac with its sharp, crisp text >and icons, it's no wonder Amiga's penetration into the business market is >near nill. Whew, I'm glad someone else agrees with me. By the way, I *still* think that the workbench hand should be replaced with something better, and that a good way to do it would be to throw it open as a contest. I mean, 1.4 has gotta be in ROM, we oughtta take advantage of this opportunity while we can. And I don't care if it's gotta fit into *10* bytes, there are a lot of awfully creative people out there who could come up with something prettier than that Workbench hand. Ever been somewhere with an Amiga that had the "insert workbench" screen up, and cringe? >Editting my own icons won't change the Amiga's appearance for everyone else. >Interlace mode, even with a flicker-fixer looks stupid because everything is >wide and flat. What I'm saying is this: I don't wan't shrinking of icons >just to make my own workbench look better. That misses the point completely. >I think shrinking of icons would make the Amiga look more professional to >people considering purchasing an Amiga instead of a Mac or Clone, and that >would make it all worthwhile. Bingo. One of the things that makes the Mac's icon-based interface usable whereas Workbench is not is the fact that all icons are the same size, and small. I think that the Amiga developers made a mistake by not restricting icon size to a small standard rectangle. Why? Well, it's darn near impossible to create a neat arrangement of icons in a window without snapshotting all the time. Wanna have default icons for files without .info files? Try arranging them. Good luck. Check out Jazzbench to see the difficulties involved. Furthurmore, many programmers like to abuse the system and create enormous icons (example: NewZap). Sure, I can redo them or shrink them. I shouldn't have to. I'm not particularly artistic, and even if I were I wouldn't want to be forced to be spending time playing with other peoples icons all the time. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what can be done at this point to remedy the problem. Sigh. Sorry, this is a sore spot with me. /.- -- .. --. .- .-. ..- .-.. . ... .- -- .. --. .- .-. ..- .-.. . ...\ / Neil Weinstock | att!cord!nsw | "One man's garbage is another \ \ AT&T Bell Labs | nsw@cord.att.com | man's prune danish." - Harv Laser / \.- -- .. --. .- .-. ..- .-.. . ... .- -- .. --. .- .-. ..- .-.. . .../
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (08/11/89)
In <2584@cbnewsm.ATT.COM>, nsw@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (Neil Weinstock) writes: >>Editting my own icons won't change the Amiga's appearance for everyone else. >>Interlace mode, even with a flicker-fixer looks stupid because everything is >>wide and flat. What I'm saying is this: I don't wan't shrinking of icons >>just to make my own workbench look better. That misses the point completely. >>I think shrinking of icons would make the Amiga look more professional to >>people considering purchasing an Amiga instead of a Mac or Clone, and that >>would make it all worthwhile. > >Bingo. One of the things that makes the Mac's icon-based interface usable >whereas Workbench is not is the fact that all icons are the same size, and >small. Workbench is unusable to me, but icon size has absolutely nothing to do with my opinion of it. > I think that the Amiga developers made a mistake by not restricting >icon size to a small standard rectangle. Why? Well, it's darn near impossible >to create a neat arrangement of icons in a window without snapshotting all >the time. Wanna have default icons for files without .info files? Try >arranging them. Good luck. Check out Jazzbench to see the difficulties >involved. Furthurmore, many programmers like to abuse the system and create >enormous icons (example: NewZap). Sure, I can redo them or shrink them. >I shouldn't have to. I'm not particularly artistic, and even if I were I >wouldn't want to be forced to be spending time playing with other peoples icons all the >time. I don't think the mistake was in allowing any sized icons. I might agree with you if you faulted the manner in which you have to fiddle with the arrangement of them, rather than having a smart algorithm built in to arrange them for you. I also do not consider large icons to be an abuse of the system, though I am not particularly fond of large icons. To each his own... if you don't like large icons, fine, but please don't try to restrict the preferences of others just because you want things a certain way. >Unfortunately, I'm not sure what can be done at this point to remedy the >problem. Sigh. Nothing, I hope. >Sorry, this is a sore spot with me. Me too. -larry -- "So what the hell are we going to do with a Sun?" - Darlene Phillips - +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
rademach@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Simon Rademacher) (08/12/89)
In article <2584@cbnewsm.ATT.COM> nsw@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (Neil Weinstock) writes: >In article <16163@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> Vince Lee writes: >[ ... ] > >>Editting my own icons won't change the Amiga's appearance for everyone else. >>Interlace mode, even with a flicker-fixer looks stupid because everything is >>wide and flat. What I'm saying is this: I don't wan't shrinking of icons >>just to make my own workbench look better. That misses the point completely. >>I think shrinking of icons would make the Amiga look more professional to >>people considering purchasing an Amiga instead of a Mac or Clone, and that >>would make it all worthwhile. > >Bingo. One of the things that makes the Mac's icon-based interface usable >whereas Workbench is not is the fact that all icons are the same size, and >small. I think that the Amiga developers made a mistake by not restricting >icon size to a small standard rectangle. Why? Well, it's darn near impossible >to create a neat arrangement of icons in a window without snapshotting all >the time. Wanna have default icons for files without .info files? Try >arranging them. Good luck. Check out Jazzbench to see the difficulties >involved. Furthurmore, many programmers like to abuse the system and create >enormous icons (example: NewZap). Sure, I can redo them or shrink them. >I shouldn't have to. I'm not particularly artistic, and even if I were I >wouldn't want to be forced to be spending time playing with other peoples icons all the >time. > >Unfortunately, I'm not sure what can be done at this point to remedy the >problem. Sigh. > >Sorry, this is a sore spot with me. A few of ugly solutions: 1) Include program to shrink all icons to standard size. The problem is that detail is lost and the result could be horrendous to look at. 2) Write a program that displays a bunch of icons for the user to choose as a replacement for the included icon. Icons can be found on some of the Fish disks. Problem: requires user input and would require lots of tedious work to replace many disk's program's icons. But after this initial replacement, each furthur one would just be part of the installation of new software. 3) Include two icons for each program. (Oops, forgot interlace. 4 icons? this is getting out of hand.) a) put two icons in each .info file, one of standard size. Include a preferences option to choose plain or fancy icons. Problems: increases size of .info files and would have to be backwards compatiable. Neither of these are real biggies. Of couse, programmers wouldn't have to give two icons, so this may be wasted. b) include two .info files. Then, either have the user choose one to use as the .info, or have a preferences option that picks which one to display. Problem: adds lots of files to already cluttered directories. 4) Change workbench to display standard, built-in icons for every .info file found. Ie, check the .info for file type and then display the appropriate icon. Problems: Dull, repetetive, have to resort to reading file name to see what program is rather than look at icon. I myself like 3a. It wouldn't be too hard to examine the icon and just display it if it's the old style. Or, if new, check preferences to see which icon in the file to display. Of course, this is probably too late for 1.4. Numbers 1 and 4 could work retroactivly, but I don't think the results would be very satisfactory. As to the icons themselves, I think home buyers would be more attracted to a machine displaying more interesting and large icons then the less interesting, if neater, standard sized ones. Should we give the machine two modes--business (plain) and home (fancy) as far as icons go? Sorry to ramble. ======================================= = Simon Rademacher = = rademach%tramp@boulder.colorado.edu =
rtczegledi@crocus.waterloo.edu (Richard Czegledi) (08/13/89)
Regarding: Hugepiles of rambling nonesense about shrinkable icons.
Seems to me what most people want is a tiny icon, just enough to distinguish
what type of file it is.
IE: A tiny pic of page for a textfile
A little teenie weenie file cabinet for a drawer... etc...
Well, if Workbench 1.4 allows you to display the actual text files through
workbench, then they should allow it to have a 'type' icon, that sits
beside the textfile, indicating what type of file it was. This can be
done to a certain extent with the protection bits already available.
A little script icon (tiny) for any file that has a script bit set.
A weewee pic of a chip or something for an executable
---BUT--- if people want next to invisible icons that are all of a generic
sort of look (you can't have much variety in tiny icons), then what's the
-> POINT <- of an icon interface? It might as well be text if you have
to look at the file names rather than the pictures.
Having small uniform icons (like the directory drawer icons) isn't in the
spirit of an icon oriented interface. I myself have about 7 diferent drawer
icons. The file cabinet, the 'amigo times' drawers (nice), and other ones
for 'C' and 'Rexx' stuff. It helps.
Still, I think the programmers of 1.4 should look into my earlier suggestion
of files 'under' files. Would improve the image of the machine incredibly.
suther@novavax.UUCP (Scot M. Sutherland) (08/13/89)
In article <10706@boulder.Colorado.EDU> rademach@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Simon Rademacher) writes: >A few of ugly solutions: > >1) Include program to shrink all icons to standard size. The problem is >that detail is lost and the result could be horrendous to look at. > >2) Write a program that displays a bunch of icons for the user to choose as >a replacement for the included icon. Icons can be found on some of the Fish >disks. Problem: requires user input and would require lots of tedious work >to replace many disk's program's icons. But after this initial replacement, >each furthur one would just be part of the installation of new software. > >3) Include two icons for each program. (Oops, forgot interlace. 4 icons? >this is getting out of hand.) > a) put two icons in each .info file, one of standard size. Include a >preferences option to choose plain or fancy icons. Problems: increases size >of .info files and would have to be backwards compatiable. Neither of these >are real biggies. Of couse, programmers wouldn't have to give two icons, so >this may be wasted. > b) include two .info files. Then, either have the user choose one to use >as the .info, or have a preferences option that picks which one to display. >Problem: adds lots of files to already cluttered directories. > >4) Change workbench to display standard, built-in icons for every .info file >found. Ie, check the .info for file type and then display the appropriate >icon. Problems: Dull, repetetive, have to resort to reading file name to >see what program is rather than look at icon. One of the things about the Amiga mystique, if you will, is the unique icons. I agree that the large gawdy icons so often used detract from this basically clever feature. I always tend to resist uniformity and constricting order. Even as a technical writer I try to inject clever turns of thought or induendo, whenever I can. I believe the creative animated icons fit nicely with chip names like Agnus, Paula, Denise. I find that the most clever and brilliant creations have their own special look and feel. Having said all of that, I have spent some valuable work time reorganizing or changing Icons, so I can sympathize with you complaint. When I'm really in a hurry to check out a new disk or get copying and housekeeping tasks done I use DiskMan or another pointer-based utility than bypasses the icons. Having used Macs a fair bit, I find that the color full featured icons are easier to recognize for me. I have to look more carefully at Mac icons, especially disk icons. I don't have to read the label on the icon as much on the Amiga. I thought that was the idea behind icons...a picture worth a thousand... I would like to see a program that simply doubles the vertical size of the icons when in interlace. That's what I do when I really need an icon in interlace. They don't have the exact proportion as non-interlace but they are very close.
"kosma@ALAN.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM"@alan.kahuna.decnet.lockheed.com (08/14/89)
Received: from GEORG.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM by ALAN.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM via CHAOS with CHAOS-MAIL id 34314; Fri 11-Aug-89 16:32:20 PDT
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 89 16:32 PDT
From: Montgomery Kosma <kosma@ALAN.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: Re: Icon sizes, Workbench hand (was Re: My AmigaDOS 1.4 wishlist)
To: "eagle::amiga-relay%udel.edu"@KAHUNA.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM
In-Reply-To: Your message of 11 Aug 89 16:13 PDT
Message-ID: <19890811233209.3.KOSMA@GEORG.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM>
A few of ugly solutions:
1) Include program to shrink all icons to standard size. The problem is
that detail is lost and the result could be horrendous to look at.
how about a program that shrinks with maybe two or three different
algorithms so you have a choice of the best-looking squashed icon?
2) Write a program that displays a bunch of icons for the user to choose as
a replacement for the included icon. Icons can be found on some of the Fish
disks. Problem: requires user input and would require lots of tedious work
to replace many disk's program's icons. But after this initial replacement,
each furthur one would just be part of the installation of new software.
or maybe a program that does both 1 and 2 and lets you pick :-)
3) Include two icons for each program. (Oops, forgot interlace. 4 icons?
this is getting out of hand.)
a) put two icons in each .info file, one of standard size. Include a
preferences option to choose plain or fancy icons. Problems: increases size
of .info files and would have to be backwards compatiable. Neither of these
are real biggies. Of couse, programmers wouldn't have to give two icons, so
this may be wasted.
b) include two .info files. Then, either have the user choose one to use
as the .info, or have a preferences option that picks which one to display.
Problem: adds lots of files to already cluttered directories.
I don't like this. I already don't use workbench much, and so I hate
all the .info files sitting around on my hard disk. Having more of them
or having them eat more disk is not too appealing
4) Change workbench to display standard, built-in icons for every .info file
found. Ie, check the .info for file type and then display the appropriate
icon. Problems: Dull, repetetive, have to resort to reading file name to
see what program is rather than look at icon.
I *would* like to have icons available, and in fact most of the icons I
have on my hard disk are all the same (mostly lots of folders).
Displaying a standard set of icons would be great, especially if there
was a feature which did something like
(if ICON-IS-SPECIFIED-IN-INFO-FILE
(draw icon-from-info-file)
(draw standard-icon))
(sorry for the lisp but it's ingrained in me! (:-))
that way, info files could be smaller for those things which have no
icons specified, but for some applications could have larger icons
specified.
Also, what are the chances of getting rid of info files altogether
(optionally, of course) and, say, specifying an icon based upon reading
an IFF tag off of a file? This is probably a quite uniformed question
as I have little idea what's actually in an info file.
monty kosma
UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) (08/16/89)
In article <10706@boulder.Colorado.EDU>, rademach@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Simon Rademacher) says: > > >1) Include program to shrink all icons to standard size. The problem is >that detail is lost and the result could be horrendous to look at. Sounds like a good senior project (at least) for someone interested in graphics. How to skrink a drawing without losing the important detail? Similar to the work being done on character recognition that starts by reducing all the components of the picture to one-pixel wide skeleton. > >3) Include two icons for each program. (Oops, forgot interlace. 4 icons? >this is getting out of hand.) Can't you make interlace icons by duplicating each horizontal row? Oral History A long time ago, someone from Commodore (Carolyn Scheppner, I think) posted a list of principles that were originally used for designing workbench icons. Included some notion of minimum size, and that all lines should be at least 2 pixels wide. In those dark ages, there was still a notion, I think, that many Amigas would be connected to TVs, so visual design was done with the blurriness of typical TVs in mind. Mac icons are clean and professional looking in part because of their smallness and apparent detail. Amiga icons tend to look like they were drawn with children's crayons.
johnhlee@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Vince Lee) (08/16/89)
In article <694@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes: >In <2584@cbnewsm.ATT.COM>, nsw@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (Neil Weinstock) writes: > >I don't think the mistake was in allowing any sized icons. I might agree with >you if you faulted the manner in which you have to fiddle with the arrangement >of them, rather than having a smart algorithm built in to arrange them for you. >I also do not consider large icons to be an abuse of the system, though I am >not particularly fond of large icons. To each his own... if you don't like >large icons, fine, but please don't try to restrict the preferences of others >just because you want things a certain way. > I felt I've got to reply to this since I seem to have fueled much of the debate with my initial posting. I don't like large icons, but I think the flatness of the icons is a larger problem. It has been suggested that icons be stretched in interlace mode, but this would require re-arranging the icons and larger windows to hold them. The end result is that all of the benefit of interlace mode would lost! The cleanest solution I can think of is this: 1) include an extra flag in the info file CREATED_INTERLACE. Any icons with this flag would be assumed to be made in (for) interlace (of course.) Thus, info files would not be any larger, and the fix would be fully backwards compatible, and current icons would remain unchanged on the default WB. 2) Include two new preference items: Shrink_icons and Expand_icons. If an icon was created in your resolution, do nothing! -> If running in non-interlace, Shrink_Icons will cause interlace icons to be shrunk vertically; Expand icons will have them expanded horizon- tally (yuck!) -> If running in interlace, Shrink_Icons shrinks them horizontally; Expand_Icons expands them vertically. 3) Thus, this fix has the best of all possible worlds; It does nothing on current workbenches, it shrinks or expands (choice). It is backwards- compatible, and it doesn't make info files any larger. -Vince
portuesi@tweezers.esd.sgi.com (Michael Portuesi) (08/16/89)
In article <12112@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> bob@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (robert s. richardson) writes:
The one nit-picky thing that annoys me about the Workbench vs. most other
windowing environments is the lack of a BACKGROUND. I know about programs
such as Tapestry and such, but they let the background show through the
windows, which defeats the purpose in my mind. I like to think of
windows as pices of paper on my desktop, not transparencies.
Eric Lavitsky wrote a program called DropCloth, which will do what
you're asking for. It will even put a four-color IFF picture in the
background, if you have CHIP memory to spare. It's shareware and is
on an older Fish Disk, and should be available via FTP from one of the
Amiga archives. The Fish Disks contain more than one version, so you
should look for the version on the highest numbered Fish Disk.
The newest batch of Fish Disks contains a similar program on disk 234:
WBPic Replaces Workbench's color 0 with an IFF hires non-
interlaced picture, in 2 or 4 colors. Version 1.0,
includes source in Modula-II.
Author: Fridtjof Siebert
I would expect the 1.4 Workbench to provide this feature, among
others.
--M
--
Michael Portuesi Silicon Graphics Computer Systems, Inc.
portuesi@SGI.COMfrankd@pro-pac.cts.com (Mike Snook) (08/17/89)
Network Comment: to #22571 by rademach@tramp.Colorado.EDU Hope I've got this working write, this is my first post to this type of net. As far as Icons go, a good standard is the plain old CLI.info as an example of a tool type icon, and the Shell.info (from 1.3 workbench) as an example of a project type icon. You wouldn't even have to write a program to switch these icons for more fancy ones; a simple script file would do it. Of course you would have to enter the default tool and tool types etc. by hand so it might be better to write a program to switch the images. On second thought you could probably do it with a script file and something like IconMerge...
bob@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (robert s. richardson) (08/17/89)
In article <16334@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> johnhlee@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Vince Lee) writes: > >The cleanest solution I can think of is this: > >1) include an extra flag in the info file CREATED_INTERLACE. Any icons with >this flag would be assumed to be made in (for) interlace (of course.) Thus, >info files would not be any larger, and the fix would be fully backwards >compatible, and current icons would remain unchanged on the default WB. > >2) Include two new preference items: Shrink_icons and Expand_icons. If an >icon was created in your resolution, do nothing! [details deleted] >-Vince This is the best advice I've seen come out of this debate. You have my vote. Is anyone at Commodore following this? If so, whilst I have your attention: The one nit-picky thing that annoys me about the Workbench vs. most other windowing environments is the lack of a BACKGROUND. I know about programs such as Tapestry and such, but they let the background show through the windows, which defeats the purpose in my mind. I like to think of windows as pices of paper on my desktop, not transparencies. Is there any solution out there that will give me a simple patterned or colored background that only shows where there are no windows? I think this would make the WB look SOOOOO much more professional, even to the point of almost (but not quite) making topaz forgivable.