Workspace icons

Icons are small graphical symbols that represent interface objects such as folders and documents. Icons provide a way for users to select and manipulate objects as whole entities. They do not provide a means for users to manipulate the content of objects; the objects must be opened to manipulate their contents.

Icons convey important information to users. An icon's appearance can portray:

The type of object it represents, such as a document
The type of data the object contains, such as text, graphics, video, or sound
Interaction feedback, such as highlighting on selection

NOTE

In a compound document environment where documents can embed other data types, the icon of a document with embedded data represents the outermost data type.

Currently, icons represent these Workspace objects:

The document and folder icons are flat and two-dimensional.
The upper-right corner of a document icon is folded over to show that it is a single document instead of stationery (see "Stationery" on page 27).
Stationery is shown by adding thickness to the document and folder icons to form pads resembling pads of paper.
Currently, there is a single large icon size, 30 by 30 points maximum.
The font for icon names is Taligent Sans 12 point, and the icon name appears centered under the icon.
Appliance icons should be three-dimensional to match their real-life analogs, and should not exceed 40 by 40 points in size.

NOTE

Future releases will include Place icons (see Chapter 1 for information on Place elements). Place icons should be three-dimensional to show that Place elements are an enclosing context for other containers such as documents and folders.

Icon names

An object's name appears beneath its icon. As a developer, you name the object when you create the first instance of it. When you create additional instances of the same object, they are identified by a suffix after the object's name--for example, MyDocument-new, MyDocument-new-2, or MyDocument-copy. The user can rename an object by clicking on its name and typing a new name.

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