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Icons

To represent your application in Mac OS X, it’s essential to create high-quality Aqua-style application icons that scale well in the various places the icon appears— the Dock, Finder previews, alert dialogs, and so on.

Icon Genres and Families

A new concept in Mac OS X is the notion of icon genres, which help communicate what you can do with an application before you open it. Applications are classified by role—user applications, software utilities, and so on—and each category has its own icon style. This differentiation is very important for helping users easily distinguish between types of icons in the Dock.

Figure 11-2 Application icons of different genres—user applications and utilities—shown as they might appear in the Dock

For example, the icons for user applications are colorful and inviting, while utilities have a more serious appearance. Figure 11-3 shows user application icons in the top row and utility icons in the bottom row. These genres are further described in “User Application Icons” (page 204) and “Utility Icons” (page 207).

202Icon Genres and Families

Apple Computer, Inc. June 2002

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Icons

Figure 11-3 Two icon genres: User application icons in top row, utility icons in bottom row

The graphic flexibility of Aqua icons can also help users identify files associated with an application. In iTunes, for example, a visual cue provided in the application icon is carried over into icons for other files associated with iTunes, forming an icon family, as shown in Figure 11-4.

Apple Computer, Inc. June 2002