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From: sho@tybalt.caltech.edu (Sho Kuwamoto)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Strange effect of Mask setting in Icon editing
Message-ID: <6304@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: 28 Apr 88 23:41:05 GMT
References: <9105@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <8995@apple.Apple.Com> <1407@iscuva.ISCS.COM> <27481@cca.CCA.COM>
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Reply-To: sho@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (Sho Kuwamoto)
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Organization: California Institute of Technology
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In article <27481@cca.CCA.COM> dee@CCA.CCA.COM.UUCP (Donald Eastlake) writes:
>In article <1407@iscuva.ISCS.COM> jimc@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Jim Cathey) writes:
>>
>>I _hate_ those 'animated' icons.  [...]
>>I'm glad Apple has the guts to 'break' programs that have
>>clearly violated the rules.  
>
>On the other hand, I think that animated ICONs are really neat and a
>very MAC-like extension to the interface.
>
>Maybe I am missing something but I don't see any reason for Apple to
>have "broken" these programs insteaded of just fixing ICONs so they work
>aninated in color.  Especially with the CalcMask call to QuickDraw, the
>"mask" part of the ICN# does not seem logically necessary.  Why not just
>have the Finder calcualte the mask from the regular ICON or from the xor
>as appropriate?
>
>It is too bad that you think the original Apple guidelines are the word
>of God and that any deviation therefrom must be excommunicated.
>

There two reasons *I* don't like animated icons:
  1) They look ugly on the desktop
  2) It is often difficult to tell whether or not an item is hilighted

If you don't believe me about 2), take a look at the shareware version of
Dungeons of Doom, or the actual commercial version of Shadowgate.  For an
extreme example, take a look at some Amiga icons where animated icons are
rampant.

As for why the Finder doesn't just calculate the mask... I don't know.  
CalcMask() hasn't been around forever, so it's obvious why it wasn't 
used initially.  As for why they don't switch, I think there are two reasons.
First, there is nothing to be gained by doing this except for a tiny bit
of disk space (yeah, right).  It doesn't burden the programmer at all,
because of programs such as Resedit.  In addition, some icons might
look better if the mask were, say, one pixel larger than the icon,
whereas others might not.  It gives more flexibility to the
programmer.

Now when will apple put cicn's in the finder....


						-Sho
 (sho@tybalt.caltech.edu, sho@caltech.bitnet, ...!cit-vax!tybalt!sho)