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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: Icons on Buttons - again
From:       Mike Richardson <mike () quaking ! demon ! co ! uk>
Date:       2002-01-19 16:44:57
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On Saturday 19 January 2002 2:57 pm, Thomas Zander wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 19, 2002 at 09:47:20AM -0500, ian reinhart geiser wrote:
> > On Saturday 19 January 2002 09:14, Thomas Zander wrote about Re: Icons on
> >
> > Buttons - again:
> > > It might be confusing; but the icons are correct.
> > >
> > > No and Cancel both do the same thing. Cancel also cancels the operation
> > > in the first place.
> > >
> > > I don't see a problem with this dialog.
> >
> > Lets try to keep KDE out of the interface hall of shame.
> >
> > That is NOT correct UI action.  Every icon should be individual to each
> > action.  This was my biggest objection to Icons on buttons, they tend to
> > be inconsistant and hard to make consistant.  I know this puts burden on
> > the artists here, but this is the path we chose to go down.
>
> Excuse me for stating the obvious; the button is an icon AND a word. If
> you seperate them then there is no gain in using the icons. Please don't
> make the mistake that there is suppost to be an icon for every button; that
> was never the purpose!
> The icon complements the word and both together will be able to show a more
> consistent desktop.

Sorry, I think this is wrong. The icon is a visual representation of the 
action that the button performs; the text is a textual description of what 
the button does. They __individually__ mean the same thing.

Think of a tool bar where you can select text+icon or text or icon. You view 
would lead to identical controls if you turn off text

>
> Placing similar icons on 2 buttons that do _almost_ the same is not wrong,
> in this dialog the words seperate the two buttons which have identical
> icons, however the icons still give a colorful feedback to the intention of
> the button.

Maybe, but it looked to me like the buttons were identical. This leads to 
three possible intepretations:

(a) Icon+text gives meaning  (Thomas' view)
(b) Err? The buttons do different things and there is something workg with 
the graphics
(c) Err? The buttons do the same thing and there is something wrong with the 
text

Ambiguity. Yuk! 

>
> so; I don't see any problem with the dialog.

My 2d worth

Mike


-- 
mike@quaking.demon.co.uk
http://www.quaking.demon.co.uk
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