Has the 'hourglass' icon had its day?

[fingal]

Hi

I started thinking about something we're all familiar with: the hourglass icon which kicks in when some process or other is happening in the background.

It's just that whenever I see it twirling around on my machine I think 'something's gone wrong' even if this isn't so. For me the hourglass = failure && system crash.

Does anyone think the hourglass has had its day, and what would you replace it with? Some ideas:

twirling penguins
a spinning Debian icon
Bill Gates's glasses
Homer Simpson's butt
A hamster in a wheel

Just a fun thing for the end of the week.

[deltaflyer]

ditched the hourglass ages ago, hated being reminded of windows, prefer suse's little bouncing icons (yeah, i know,sad )

andy

[fingal]

ditched the hourglass ages ago, hated being reminded of windows, prefer suse's little bouncing icons (yeah, i know,sad )

andy

He he ... I must admit, this whole thread was inspired by me deciding that enough is enough. I'm gonna get rid of my hourglass. Just not sure what to replace it with yet ? ...

[GNOME_n00b]

fingal

twirling penguins

you can find some here . there's an older version here. i'm not too sure what the main differences are because i never looked into it. checkout the "xkill" cursor(it shows an aggressive tux) . they're really good too because i have personally tried them out. isntead of a cursor, its a penguin that lifts/pushes screens (eg when resizing or moving windows etc), spins(ie when busy). etc try them and let me know what you think.

[AlexK]

ditched the hourglass ages ago, hated being reminded of windows, prefer suse's little bouncing icons (yeah, i know,sad )

it is a KDE thing, not just a SUSE thing.

Fingal, I like your hamster in a wheel suggestion. As for the Debian one, perhaps all distros can have their own logo. e.g. SUSE's lizard (or whatever it is) changing color or Gentoo's penguin (if that is what it is) having it's eyes flashing.

Or what about that little dragon which was present in older Mandrake releases, sure as hell beats Clippy and the spinning hourglass.

GNOME_n00b, nice link, Im going to try those cursors out.

[Apollo]

Ubuntu has a little round clock with the hour hand moving around it in a fast circular motion. Still beats the hourglass though.

[fingal]

fingal

you can find some here . there's an older version here. i'm not too sure what the main differences are because i never looked into it. checkout the "xkill" cursor(it shows an aggressive tux) . they're really good too because i have personally tried them out. isntead of a cursor, its a penguin that lifts/pushes screens (eg when resizing or moving windows etc), spins(ie when busy). etc try them and let me know what you think.

Thanks mate - that looks very cool! I'll just need to figure out how to install the thing ... my directory structure isn't the same as the one in the install instructions ... I'll get back to you once I've got my head together.

[GNOME_n00b]

Thanks mate - that looks very cool! I'll just need to figure out how to install the thing ... my directory structure isn't the same as the one in the install instructions ... I'll get back to you once I've got my head together.

actually, i think i may have installed mine in the .icons directory in my home directory. i don't remember installing it in /usr/lib/X11/icons as per the instructions. try the .icons directory instead.

GNOME_n00b, nice link, Im going to try those cursors out.

have you tried them out yet?

[fingal]

actually, i think i may have installed mine in the .icons directory in my home directory. i don't remember installing it in /usr/lib/X11/icons as per the instructions. try the .icons directory instead.

have you tried them out yet?

I'm going to try them out this evening. Wow! I had a busy weekend ... I've been trying out instant messaging and IRC chat. Those things really eat your time away.

My setup doesn't have an /icons directory in /usr/lib/X11 so your information about .icons should be very useful.

[AlexK]

yeah, I tried it. there is an X11 directory for me, just copied the tuxcurosor folder there, told KDE control center to use the new icon set. restart KDE and it works.

but now I find those icons kind of annoying, especially on a slow connection and computer. the penguin inside the hourglass really gets on my nerves.....