#Workbench for novices
7 messages in this thread
Please see my earlier messages. Under the scheme I have described there
would be NO identical icon information on the disk, nor would the icon
information be visible from the CLI. It would, however, make every file
visible from the Workbench (of course, you could make files "invisible"
from the Workbench if you wanted to, but the default would be to show
them–without the need for ".info" files).
No practical scheme for default icons will avoid the visual assault of
identical icons. Nothing I see in your earlier messages appears to address
this issue.
It is far, far better to have no icon than to have the information-free visual
clutter of identical default icons.
It is far better to have a "visual assault of identical icons" (talk about
being dramatic 🙂 ) than to be robbed of the ability and power to customize a
system for flexible multitasking, and not being able to do some very important
and simple system manipulations.
As Doug pointed out to me, that would be obnoxious to the C: directory.
Perhaps default icons could be user-specified to turn off for each directory,
instead of globally.
'robbed of the ability to customize…'
That's pretty dramatic in itself Henry. If you refuse to use the tools that are
provided, or that are available, you are robbing yourself.
If a compatible scheme could provide for easily set switches to get rid of
icons for all but the necessary icons, and more importantly, if a file could be
told to be devoid of an icon on a more permanent basis, I'd be all for it.
-larry
Well, obviously if you stick to the CLI you will get your system of no icons,
and with the scheme I am trying to describe you will also not get your clutter
of .info files while still allowing those Workbench users the ability to get at
all files.
BTW, identical icons are actually a good thing in several situations. For
example, you would generally want your word processor or paint program to use
the same icon for the documents it creates–there is no point in having each
new document created by ProWrite (for example) each have a different icon. The
point of an icon is not to give a file a unique visual representation, but
rather to identify the type of file, with the file name (which appears under
the icon) giving the specifics. Contrary to what you are implying, the human
eye does not operate well when scanning a visual clutter of a large number of
dissimilar pictures–if it were then we would all be using a pictographic
written language like Japanese.
James Bayless
New Horizons Software, Inc.
You are right about people being confused by too many different images at
once. I love being able to create my own icons, and I change mine frequently,
but I like to have all directories on the same disk have the same icon, for
example. On a different disk, I may want an entirely different image.
Betty,
After looking at one of your bookshelves, do you honestly maintain that it
would be less confusing if all your books were the same size and color and
differed from one another only by the name on the spine (in the same font)?