Tuesday 15 May 2012

Icons

This is what happens when you a) don't think through an idea and b) refuse to abandon it when it all goes pear shaped.

Yes, you can make a case for the icon for Save being a bit dated because the floppy disc has gone the way of all silicon.  It wasn't in general use by the public for too many years and changed a lot over time, so the connection will probably fade away quickly.  But clipboards?  Spanners?  Telephone handsets?  If you think that nobody sees these anymore, then you need to but down the Doritos and step away from the screen.

2 comments:

Sergej said...

Floppy disks? Unweaned whelps! Back in my day, it were punched paper tape!

eon said...

Sergej;

Punch cards for me. On an IBM 3160 series mainframe. My 25-year-old TI-30X solar-powered scientific calculator probably has more parallel-processing capability than that monster did.

One of the most annoying icons in Windows is the flashlight, meaning "searching for file". Just look up the (bleep)ing file and spare me the animation, please, Microsoft.

Of course, youngsters probably don't know what a flashlight is, either. After all, their teen heroes in horror movies never use them going into a dark, scary building at night; it's just not cool.

I'd be going in with a Streamlite. Attached under the forend of an MP-5.

cheers

eon