The 'sync' icon (top left in emplode, looks almost exactly as the circular arrows for undo/redo icon in windows ,but the effect is *very* different
Can you please change the circular into a straight ( --> ) or Z> one?

I got bit by the different meaning when trying to undo a number of changes in emplode. Instead, it synced and messed up the playlist structure!

FYI: Was trying to figure out the conditons that cause emplode to crash. When cutting and pasting playlists between windows it seems to lose track of the changes and crashes: two emplode windows open - cutting from window1 and pasting to window2 shows that emplode behaves differently depending on how they are moved (playlist to playlist, title to title, or between playlist and title windows).
Got my playlist structure pretty messed up now

Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

The 'sync' icon (top left in emplode, looks almost exactly as the circular arrows for undo/redo icon in windows ,but the effect is *very* different. Can you please change the circular into a straight ( --> ) or Z> one?

How about I draw some better synch icons and see if the empeg guys like them?

Do you like any of these?:



___________
Tony Fabris

Hmm..looks too much like warnings.. how about the picture of the empeg w/ a checkmark going through it?
-mark

...proud to have owned one of the first Mark I units

Good idea, but I'm having trouble drawing a good checkmark with so few pixels. I'll try back at it later...

___________
Tony Fabris

Do you like any of these?:

Yeah, I like most of them; pretty and good.
Just to see if it improves: could you turn the connect of the last one (bottom right -- the one N connect) horizontal, so it becomes more like a Z??



Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

PS: how do you do that so quickly ??

Talking about icons . . .

Almost all icons in emplode (except top level) end in ...
This is supposed to indicate -- see MS GUI conventions -- that clicking will open a submenu of choices.
Not in emplode: some commit the choice straight away -- others *do* lead to a submenu.

I believe it would be nice if emplode followed the convention (which MS might have stolen from Apple, who pinched from Bell, etc) . . .
Abyhow, it would make emplode behaviour more predictable

Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

Um, that was supposed to be a lightning bolt. I guess it's drawn poorly if you couldn't tell that.

What were you looking for, a letter Z? Sure I could draw a letter Z, but why? I'm not sure I see the metaphor.

___________
Tony Fabris

...The lightning bolt reminds me too much of zapped electronics:)
-mark

...proud to have owned one of the first Mark I units

I like the bottom right one. I like the idea of the zap. Makes me think my songs are being transfered at lightning speed.

Alex Lear

An icon that looks like the two arrows chasing each other (from the empeg screen when syncing) would make obvious sense.
That reminds me when that screen comes up, is synchronising spelled correctly? I thought the correct spelling is synchronizing.

Alex Lear

I've noticed that a lot of words that we spell with a z, Europeans (maybe other non-Americans too?) spell with an s. Just another way we've changed the language I guess.

Bill B.
Mk.2 SN 080000183 - 18 GB / Green

is synchronising spelled correctly?

I think (not 100% confident on this one) that "synchronise" is the British spelling variant of the word (like colour instead of color, etc.) and since the empeg is, after all, quintessentially British... Well, I think we should let them get away with this one. They are nice enough to allow some of their empegs to come over here to the Colonies after all.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

An icon that looks like the two arrows chasing each other (from the empeg screen when syncing) would make obvious sense.

Except that's precisely what Henno had trouble with. A circular arrow, to most Microsoft users, means "Undo". Whether it's two arrows or one, the same ingrained metaphor is there.

Here, I've drawn some others based on the suggestions in this thread. It includes a two-arrow design, but they're vertical instead of circular.



___________
Tony Fabris

Not quite correct. The ellipsis (...) is supposed to indicate that the application may not have enough information to complete the command immediately, and will bring up a dialog box.

Surely you mean menu options anyway? Most of the icons were *ahem* borrowed directly from MS applications.

Which ones are irritating you the most? You might want to stick this in a private email, in case we bore the people here witless.



Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

The button icon in emplode is supposed to echo the spinning arrows displayed on the empeg itself during the synchronisation. It's reminiscent of the synchronise button on the Palm cradle (if anyone's got one of those).



Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

I think that technically, we both changed the language. You lot left this country just before anybody bothered standardising spellings. Hence, two different spellings for quite a lot of words. This is on top of Webster's (the man, not the book) insistence on dropping "useless" letters from words like colour.


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

...a z, Europeans (maybe other...

British, certainly. Most Europeans speak another first language (e.g. French, German, Spanish, ...). How they spell English words is largely down to who they learnt it from (you or us).


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

The ellipsis (...) is supposed to indicate that the application may not have enough information to complete the command immediately, and will bring up a dialog box.

Exactly. Some of the menu items in Emplode have an ellipsis following them, but they don't bring up a dialog box or give you a chance to cancel. For example, "Synchronize..." immediately begins synchronizing without giving you any more choices.

Yes, the synchronize command makes a box appear, but that's not what the convention means. The ellipsis should only be present if the box gives you some choices (and a chance to cancel) before doing anything.

The whole idea is that the ellipsis should indicate a "safe" menu item, where nothing happens right away and you've still got a chance to cancel if you want.

___________
Tony Fabris

The button icon in emplode is supposed to echo the spinning arrows displayed on the empeg itself during the synchronisation. It's reminiscent of the synchronise button on the Palm cradle (if anyone's got one of those).

Yeah, and it bugs me on the Palm cradle, too.

___________
Tony Fabris

Some of the menu items in Emplode have an ellipsis following them, but they don't bring up a dialog box

Blame Mike . I'll fix it tomorrow.

Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

ellipsis following them, but they don't bring up a dialog box
Yep, this is exactly what I meant.

from Roger's earlier message
You might want to stick this in a private email, in case we bore the people here witless.
no longer needed. Tony explained everything there's to say, didn't he?

Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

that was supposed to be a lightning bolt. I guess it's drawn poorly if you couldn't tell that.
Drawn OK, just couldn't find a name to describe it: yeah, lightning bolt is the right word

What were you looking for, a letter Z?
No, not the letter Z, but a 'lightning bolt' going from left to right (as opposed from top to bottom). This, in my humble opinion, makes it less a 'lightning bol'; more an 'interconnect'.

But that's just graphics and taste. Main point is that it should not look like an 'undo'. None of your suggestions do

Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

How they spell English words is largely down to who they learnt it from (you or us).

Not always. Lots of words are borrowed from other European languages -- mostly French or Latin, which makes spelling less arbitrary. Hence preference 'colour', rather than 'color'

Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

Heres a picture for non Palm owners:

Some of the European countries don't even speak English at all - Italians for example - As far as I know they don't learn english either in school or private. So most of them can't speak english.

Although english is not my mother's language and I can't speak/write it very well I like it very much - mostly the idea that it's the worlds most populate language.

TeeMcBee
Got my Mk2! # 080000143

mostly the idea that it's the worlds most populate language.

I always thought that the largest percentage of people on this planet spoke some dialect of Chinese. Did I miss a memo?

___________
Tony Fabris

Well - Maybe I forgot some small part of the world... But I think the half of Europe and all americans are a large amount, too...

TeeMcBee
Got my Mk2! # 080000143

Those brits never spelled right to begin with.

:)

Calvin

Certainly as a characteristic of a subset group that comprises a large % of the human population. But it hardly qualifies as a lingua franca. Not until it's understood that communications between one unrelated group and another (scientific community, the internet, etc) only then would it be the world's language.

Calvin

That's kind of interesting. Webster certainly didn't do a good job of dropping letters, there are still too many redundancies. :-)

Calvin

Cliff Claven here with useless fact #27: The understood language of business is English. (Not necessarily any particular dialect... pick your armour or your colors.) Most companies speak English when conducting business.

To be honest, I prefer Ye Olde English spellings. They just have that class to them. Maybe it was all those hours spent playing Ultima and Dungeons & Dragons? I never was one to go along with the masses, though...


George

and... yes, the topic police have returned!


George

> > mostly the idea that it's the worlds most populate language.

> I always thought that the largest percentage of people on this planet spoke
> some dialect of Chinese. Did I miss a memo?

Well, AFAIK, english is taught at chinese schools.
Some other poster said something about italians not speaking english. However, most young italians learnt english at school, though in some areas (in the north), the first foreign language taught is german.
French people are a whole different story though. They tend to deny their knowledge of any foreign language, at least as long as you meet them in France.

cu,
sven

PS: Do we get a little off topic?

cu,
sven

This thread went off-topic, so maybe I skimmed too quickly to see if someone else had already suggested this, but:

Changing the icons in emplode [is/should-be] quite easy.

Microangelo Librarian (part of the sharware Microangelo icon-editing suite [sic]) allows you to extract as well as REPLACE icons embedded in .DLL, .EXE, etc. files without corrupting the rest of the file.

I successfully changed the Windows flag on the Start button to a classic yellow smiley and put it up as shareware about four years ago (and am still getting e-mail to this day, asking how I did it) doing this. It seems you can steal as well as replace any icon in any filetype.

Enjoy.



--------------------
Reg #57xx, Ser #080000141, Rec'd Aug.11/00

It's even easier for me . I've got the original toolbar icon open in front of me right now. The only things holding me back are:

a) It's not on the TODO list for the next release. Why? See (b), below.
b) We'd have to change the animation on the player to match. This is more complicated.


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

We'd have to change the animation on the player to match

Depends on how much you want to change.

The circular thing in emplode causes the confusion; not the animation on the player.
I'd be quite happy when you keep the player graphics as it they are (they don't confuse anyone, I think), and only remove the circle from the sync icon in emplode. Any icon with just arrows will solve it.

I *could* go into the next release then . . .
(though it's highly unlikely I'll ever confuse the 'sync' button with an 'undo' again )

Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

So what's wrong with making the emplode icon the same as the Synch animation on the empeg? (Not animated of course). This would get my vote, as you at least get the visual coordination of images for the user (known as "User Affordance" in usability jargon )

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

So what's wrong with making the emplode icon the same as the Synch animation on the empeg?

Currently, it is the same as the synch animation on the empeg (well, one arrow instead of two- possibly becauuse of a limitation in the number of available pixels).

The root of the original complaint is that any curved arrow icon (regardless of the number of arrows IMO) could be misinterpreted as an Undo icon, since that's what Microsoft uses for their Undo buttons.

Funny thing is, it's just a convention, and has nothing to do with reality. For instance, one of my suggestions for the synch icon was an exclamation mark. If you think about it, an exclamation mark would be a logical icon for an undo button as well.

___________
Tony Fabris

Microangelo Librarian (part of the sharware Microangelo icon-editing suite [sic]) allows you to extract as well as REPLACE icons embedded in .DLL, .EXE, etc. files without corrupting the rest of the file.

My version of Microangelo Librarian is only allowing me to edit the explorer icons in Emplode, not its toolbar buttons. I may have an older version of it. Does your version allow you to edit the toolbar buttons?

___________
Tony Fabris

The toolbar buttons aren't icons. They're bitmaps. More precisely, the entire toolbar is a single bitmap, with the button images aligned on a 16x16 (or was it x15) grid. Therefore, an icon editor won't generally help you.

We're considering using one of Tony's funky new icons in emplode. Personally, I'd quite like one with two arrows, kinda like Outlook Express' Send/Receieve button. Tony?



Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

The toolbar buttons aren't icons. They're bitmaps. More precisely, the entire toolbar is a single bitmap, with the button images aligned on a 16x16 (or was it x15) grid. Therefore, an icon editor won't generally help you.

Of course. I've built these kinds of resources myself before, so I knew this. The only reason I asked about Microangelo is that I thought a new version of the program might have been able to detect these things and binary-edit them within an .EXE file. The version I've got, as you said, is just an icon editor, but I was hoping a newer version had gotten crafty. Not as a solution to the Emplode complaint, but just for my own fun with other .EXE files.

We're considering using one of Tony's funky new icons in emplode. Personally, I'd quite like one with two arrows, kinda like Outlook Express' Send/Receieve button. Tony?

I thought I did post one with two straight arrows. Perhaps not in the first post, but in my follow-up later. Here is the file again:



I'm not familiar with Outlook (I don't use it and have removed its files from my hard drive), but I'd be happy to draw whatever you wanted.

You're welcome to use any of the icons I drew. I posted them for that purpose. My only concern is that I guessed at the X/Y dimension limitations, and I'm not certain if the ones I drew were too big or not.

Oh, and the horizontal lighning bolt was ripped off from Lotus Notes, so if you decided you liked that one, we should re-draw it from scratch so that it's more different.

___________
Tony Fabris

Ack, my bad. Microangelo probably can't touch those bitmaps. I didn't fire up my copy with any emplode files to see what I could see.

There's got to be some other tool that hacks embedded bitmaps...

--------------------
Reg #57xx, Ser #080000141, Rec'd Aug.11/00

There's got to be some other tool that hacks embedded bitmaps...

I always enjoyed using Borland's Resource Workshop for this. Although its primary purpose was to edit the source code resources for your own programs, it also let you directly edit .EXE files if you wanted. Very slick. You could go in and edit menus, or fields in dialog boxes if you wanted. And yes, bitmaps as well. I've edited the card backs in video poker programs with it, for example.

Sometimes you could even perform genuine hacks with it. For example, if a shareware version of a program put up a custom dialog box as its pester screen, simply deleting or renaming that resource made the box go away. If a program's "save" function was disabled in the shareware release, sometimes a simple menu edit took care of it. Most software is much smarter than this. But there were a few that could be tricked in this fashion.

___________
Tony Fabris

(Again, here I am bringing up old threads, this should be the last one though)

We're considering using one of Tony's funky new icons in emplode.

I still like the normal icons. Anything else would seem out of place with my system having this icon all over the place. Installing ActiveSync for my iPaq just shows even more use of the two arrows forming a circle to represent a sync. I have attached a picture with the normal look of undo, and the sync icons ActiveSync uses. Look for my last post in this thread for the Palm sync icon.