“Apple Inc. has developed an enhancement to its Mac OS X Finder user interface that will allow for different-sized icons within the same window as a means of representing their importance, a recent patent application has revealed,” Prince McLean reports for AppleInsider.
“In the filing, made last December and published for the first time Thursday, the Cupertino-based Mac maker notes that conventional graphical user interfaces already allow users to alter all icons of a display system or window from one size to another size based upon their preference,” McLean reports.
McLean reports, “‘However, such difference in size does not indicate the relative importance of the files or program represented by the icon, since the change in icon size is performed universally for all icons in a container, such as a folder or window,’ the company wrote. ‘Accordingly, in order to present a more informative and personalized user interface, a manner of describing to a user relative importance of an icon in relation to other icons in a system is desirable.'”
“Apple said it has developed a user interface which allows a user to adjust the size of icons based upon the user’s preference or based upon a characteristic of the objects that the icons represent,” McLean reports.
Full article, including patent application illustrations, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “iBulb” for the heads up.]
It’s not the size of the icon that matters…
Pretty kool!
Would be nice to make some “primary” app icons larger than others… And some not-used-so-much ones smaller and out of the way…
this could be cool. you would have to be able to size by category, label, kind.
.doc files small
.psd files big
I wonder why they are showing it on an OS 9 window. Strange!!!
I’m not seeing this being used by myself, too much. In all practical applications, though it sounds interesting, I doubt I would really care to make my Firefox icon larger than my PhotoBooth icon just because I use it more…
Perhaps, though, the system could do it automatically? Files/programs/folders that are accessed more often “grow” more than other icons? Of course, the rate of growth and max size could be set by the user…
Who knows…
Also will be useful in a 3D desktop…
It isn’t just the size of the icon that matters – and I don’t mean R‘s poor joke, but how much real estate it takes up. Should the icon be “larger than normal”, it should be provided more surrounding space while if “smaller than normal” it’s surrounding space should be more restricted – offering a balance between icon and wall-paper. Mix them up and you could have a bit of chaos … use one of the cores to keep them sorted. My wife could certainly use smaller document icons … not that she’s be comfortable setting such an option.
DLMeyer – the Voice of G.L.Horton’s Stage Page pod-cast
There used to be a hack that allowed you to do this way back in Jaguar or something. Anyone remember it? It would be cool to see if it still worked under Tiger…
MDN word: fear
As in “Fear of a Mac planet”.
Perhaps with a pinch?
Yes please. Make my InDesign docs big and my support graphics small.
give me PILES!
British Mac Head: I wonder why they are showing it on an OS 9 window. Strange!!!
Jobs’s deep, dark secret is revealed! Apple uses System 6 to design OS X!
Be careful about what you wish for, erk. I already have them by way of special folders with aliases.
Another form of “Color Labels” (which I find useful).
Highlighting relative “importance” by size rather than colour.
…
**Huh Huh uhhh Huh Huh Huh**
Whoah! That’s cool Beavis.. Huh Huh huh
Thanks,
John Boyarsky
RSMS 7th & 8th Grade Math teacher and Yearbook Guy
Fairbanks, AK
Great, so when I go lookig for that document or app I haven’t used in awhile and I’m not sure where I put, it will be smaller than everything else, making it that much more difficult to find.
Sheesh – this idea is so simple yet greatly adds to visual cues which = intuitive interface.
I’m glad to see this return! It was built into the system before Panther. Why it was never activated, who knows?
I had installed a haxie called Iconsizeenabler that let you assign different icon sizes in Icon View. It worked back in 10.2, but broke in 10.3. It was cool.
Here’s a link to the page:
http://www.pixture.com/software/macosx.php
Actually…
This has been available for awhile via AppleScript–you could set the size of a single icon in the Finder. I remember playing with this once for an installer project at a company I was working for.
The problem is that more recent versions of the Finder seem to get confused when the icons aren’t all the same size. But it worked fine in older versions (like 10.2 and 10.3).
It’s amazing what you can patent nowadays…
Come on, kids! Let’s go play in the Icon Playground!
Importance by date last used could be useful too.
erk,
Keep straining on that toilet seat – you’ll get ’em!
Apple will enable it and a few years later Vista SP1 will do a crude version of it….
Vista: old and busted
Leopard: new hotness
@Boyarsky
Mommy said go take your meds