Actually searching for "built in icons" only got me another thread where people share the ways of how to use the built in icons. IMHO it is much better for user experience to have unified icons. I don't get why don't you *encourage* such use. And actually make it in a way hard to do and explicitly discourage it. While people are trying to "emulate" some of the icons or make some other icons to be consistently looking with the icons used on the platform, and each application brings with it all those icons while installed - it could be much better to have those icons readily available for reuse. And for the "missing" icons I bet people would create similarly looking icons - that's what people are doing now.
The only potential problem that I really see with this is that you release set X of icons and HTC or someone else will release set Y with some of the icons missing, then an application which relies on set X will have some of the icons missing... But I think this is a reasonable drawback to substantial gain. I usually refrain from bringing iPhone and/or Apple into the discussion, but hey - Apple are doing one thing exceptionally well - visual design. And it is not by accident that they have *very* strict guidelines about visual design in order to provide unified user experience. Regards, Max. On Nov 19, 11:59 pm, Dianne Hackborn <hack...@android.com> wrote: > We don't recommend using the built-in icons. This has already been > discussed fairly in-depth here, but the basic answer is: unless there is a > standard icon to cover every one of your menus (unlikely, unless we have a > huge number of icons in the platform, which we do not want), then you end up > with the worse situation of the icons in your app being inconsistent because > they are a mix of your own and the built-in ones. > > On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 6:38 PM, Max Binshtok <max.binsh...@gmail.com>wrote: > > > > > This does not seem to make a lot of sense. My decision to go with > > built in icons in the OS was to provide a unified user experience. So > > if those icons are changed in some version of custom build of the > > Android OS, all the apps that use those icons will have a coherent > > menu icons. Makes a lot of sense in terms of usability for the users. > > (it also reduces the package size somewhat, right?). > > > So if the above is right, it seems completely unreasonable not to > > expose the home icon to the public usage. > > > Thanks, > > Max. > > > On Nov 19, 8:29 pm, Romain Guy <romain...@google.com> wrote: > > > It's intentional. > > > > On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 2:26 AM, Max Binshtok <max.binsh...@gmail.com> > > wrote: > > > > Hi, I have been having this problem for some time now... > > > > > I am using the icons that are coming with the platform for the menus. > > > > So I use: > > > > android.R.drawable.ic_menu_help > > > > and > > > > android.R.drawable.ic_menu_info_details > > > > > but for some reason I can not use: > > > > android.R.drawable.ic_menu_home > > > > > So basically I copy this to my drawable folder and then use it > > > > normally: > > > > R.drawable.ic_menu_home > > > > > Is it some sort of a bug, or this is intentional? > > > > > -- > > > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > > > > Groups "Android Developers" group. > > > > To post to this group, send email to > > android-developers@googlegroups.com > > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > > > android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<android-developers%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > > > > For more options, visit this group at > > > >http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en > > > > -- > > > Romain Guy > > > Android framework engineer > > > romain...@android.com > > > > Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time > > > to provide private support. All such questions should be posted on > > > public forums, where I and others can see and answer them > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > > Groups "Android Developers" group. > > To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<android-developers%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en > > -- > Dianne Hackborn > Android framework engineer > hack...@android.com > > Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to > provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such > questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and > answer them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
