Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!rutgers!att!cbnewsm!nsw From: nsw@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (Neil Weinstock) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Icon sizes, Workbench hand (was Re: My AmigaDOS 1.4 wishlist) Message-ID: <2584@cbnewsm.ATT.COM> Date: 10 Aug 89 16:58:20 GMT References: <12878@well.UUCP><16025@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1989Aug8.220028.13827@nc386.uucp> <16163@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> Reply-To: nsw@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (Neil Weinstock) Organization: The Flying Squid Patrol Lines: 51 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 / \.- -- .. --. .- .-. ..- .-.. . ... .- -- .. --. .- .-. ..- .-.. . .../