[HN Gopher] NeXTSpirit, high-res NeXTSTEP Icons for macOS
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       NeXTSpirit, high-res NeXTSTEP Icons for macOS
        
       Author : galgot
       Score  : 98 points
       Date   : 2021-12-13 19:01 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (galgot.free.fr)
 (TXT) w3m dump (galgot.free.fr)
        
       | joeman1000 wrote:
       | Notice the Easter egg in the 'black terminal' icon... the abyss
       | stares back at you.
        
       | Xavdidtheshadow wrote:
       | Ah, these are "high-res" icons; this isn't a link about anyone
       | being hired.
        
         | galgot wrote:
         | :D Corrected
        
       | yllan wrote:
       | I love it! These are so good!
        
       | makecheck wrote:
       | This is what I wish we were doing with Retina displays and such:
       | making truly nice artwork instead of whatever single-colored
       | squares and circles pass for icons these days. :/
       | 
       | Yes, it takes tremendously more work and is difficult to get
       | right on a variety of screen sizes but there are also _multi-
       | billion-dollar companies_ that are in charge of this and I think
       | it's time they hired some more artists.
        
         | timeon wrote:
         | Most of preinstalled app on macOS are still like that.
        
         | chongli wrote:
         | Photorealistic icons [1] are much harder to parse, visually,
         | than very simple ones [2]. In general, graphical UIs have
         | gotten far more visually noisy in the past few decades. This
         | has made computers much harder and more fatiguing to use. So
         | often we seem to have "UX" designers changing things for the
         | sake of change rather than undertaking the legitimately hard
         | effort (UI studies) of trying to determine what will make the
         | interface easier to use.
         | 
         | [1]
         | https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cTU5hVb22k0/R6u0lS9EFuI/AAAAAAAAB...
         | 
         | [2] http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-
         | content/uploads/2011/04/Susan_Ka...
        
           | anthk wrote:
           | Please, have a look on Haiku OS' icons.
        
             | gattilorenz wrote:
             | They are not photorealistic? But also not necessarily very
             | good icons, to me (not quite representative, at least in
             | some cases), so I'm not sure what point you're trying to
             | make...
             | 
             | https://github.com/darealshinji/haiku-
             | icons/blob/master/png/...
             | 
             | https://github.com/darealshinji/haiku-
             | icons/blob/master/png/...
             | 
             | https://github.com/darealshinji/haiku-
             | icons/blob/master/png/...
        
           | EGreg wrote:
           | You are showing consumer electronics in the first one, and
           | attempting to argue that this is how icons on the MacOS and
           | iOS looked during skeumorphism.
           | 
           | The whole trend to do away with Skeumorphism led to things
           | like Google's Chrome browser having an empty white area where
           | you apparently have to know you should tap to type the URL.
           | It is still there on iOS.
           | 
           | Because showing browser chrome as slightly 3D is apparently
           | "too skeumorphic" and distracting -- better not to know where
           | the website begins and ends lol
        
           | webwielder2 wrote:
           | macOS and iOS for one are far more consistent and un-busy
           | than they were from 2000--2014 or so. Apple had poor visual
           | design discipline and deployed multiple styles across their
           | apps and OS, many of them garish and cluttered. Also, you
           | replied to a post yearning for skeuomorphic icons and
           | bemoaning the clean shapes of today, which contradicts your
           | point 2.
        
         | EGreg wrote:
         | So you LIKE Skeumorphism, you say? SHOCKING. Many people do,
         | like Steve Jobs did:
         | 
         | https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=234
        
       | itomato wrote:
       | In that case, I have to share this icon set I made ca. 2001 based
       | on Keith Ohlfs' frankly brilliant work:
       | 
       | https://interfacelift.com/icons/artist/32/itomato/index1.htm...
        
       | mattl wrote:
       | It's a shame you can't easily change the icons for dock icons
       | without disabling SIP on modern Mac OS X.
        
         | kingnight wrote:
         | Not sure if that's totally true. I've changed a bunch of icons
         | w/o disabling SIP and I'm on the latest OS.
        
           | SamuelAdams wrote:
           | I think he's talking about Apple owned applications. You can
           | change the icon for any user installed program ( chrome,
           | vsCode, iTerm) but cannot for things like Safari, Finder and
           | Mail. Unless you disable SIP
        
             | mattl wrote:
             | Yeah, I can't change the icon for Finder to be the NeXT
             | logo without disabling SIP. Kinda lame. Should be able to
             | make an alias to it and change the icon on that at least.
        
       | tambourine_man wrote:
       | I'm probably in the minority that always hated the NeXT
       | aesthetics. I was very worried when Apple bought them and was
       | rooting for BeOS at the time. Thankfully they eventually went on
       | very different direction with Aqua.
       | 
       | The HighRes versions on this site, however, are exquisite
        
         | CyberRabbi wrote:
         | If they bought Be they could not have bought NeXT since Gassee
         | and Jobs were mortal enemies.
        
           | tambourine_man wrote:
           | Sure, it was undoubtably a much better choice all in all.
           | Even Gassee would admit it himself.
           | 
           | He's been pretty kind on Steve, on written word at least,
           | over the last couple of decades.
        
         | peatmoss wrote:
         | Technologically speaking, I feel that OS X was a better choice
         | (a more robust and developed platform). Qualitatively speaking,
         | I loved everything about using BeOS--how snappy it was and the
         | way applications felt like they could be thin extensions to the
         | filesystem.
         | 
         | However, as someone whose youth involved waaaay too many hours
         | tweaking files called .fvwmrc, I knew that looks are important,
         | but skin deep. Hard to say which aesthetic I preferred. BeOS's
         | stock blue background, golden yellow tabs, and simple icons
         | always made me feel "happy" even if they didn't feel as staid
         | and sophisticated as NeXT.
        
           | tambourine_man wrote:
           | Yeah, NeXT was way more mature. Based on BSD, after all, what
           | else can you say. And the GUI dev tools were second to none.
           | 
           | But to the end user, the look and feel of BeOS hasn't been
           | matched still.
        
       | MDWolinski wrote:
       | Now if only someone could get the swirling black hole for a trash
       | can replacement.
        
       | galgot wrote:
       | Given it's a NeXTStep day today :) Part 1:
       | http://galgot.free.fr/wordpress/?p=1380 Part 2:
       | http://galgot.free.fr/wordpress/?p=1410
        
         | blackhaz wrote:
         | Absolutely amazing. Will this ever be part of an Xfce theme?
         | Can't wait to use this on my FreeBSD.
        
         | mattl wrote:
         | These are so cool. Thank you!
        
         | occoder wrote:
         | > Given it's a NeXTStep day today :)
         | 
         | You noticed that too? I wonder what karmic factors are in play
         | here.
        
           | lproven wrote:
           | I have been wondering if it's in any way related to me
           | mentioning GNUstep and Etoile in the Register recently...
           | 
           | https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/26/linux_software_instal.
           | ..
           | 
           | -\\_(tsu)_/-
        
         | meepmorp wrote:
         | I haven't seen a .sit file in the wild for a long time, nice.
         | And thank you.
        
       | pkaye wrote:
       | I never liked those folder icons. They are shown in a isometric
       | view while most others are orthographic view.
        
       | gjvc wrote:
       | why have desktop interfaces become flatter while graphics
       | processors have become faster ?
        
         | inDigiNeous wrote:
         | Well, implementing basic UI functionality even is hard enough
         | with all the changing environments, screen sizes, rotations,
         | touch interfaces and what have you. Making it as simple as
         | possible makes it possible to focus in making those work in a
         | more functional and usable manner.
         | 
         | While it is true that CPU and GPU powers have increased, also
         | the ways we use our machines have changed, people might have
         | wildly different environments that the same UI needs to work on
         | these days.
         | 
         | Scalable UI alone can become a nightmare if you have anything
         | more complex going on. Even the big players have a hard time
         | figuring out proper usability, like look at Apple or Microsoft
         | constantly making a hurdle to iterate on their designs, making
         | mistakes along different releases.
         | 
         | Building usable UI is freaking hard and requires a lot of user
         | feedback, iteration and focusing on details that you don't know
         | before starting to build the product. Changing even one thing
         | can lead to another thing breakin, and so on..
        
       | bitigchi wrote:
       | Now if only someone did HQ Platinum style icons...
        
         | galgot wrote:
         | check :https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29545340
        
       | tssva wrote:
       | Noticed there is a "Better with Firefox or Safari" message on the
       | site. I'm a little saddened to see this just as I would be to see
       | a "Better with Chrome" or the old "Better with Internet
       | Explorer".
        
       | pmarreck wrote:
       | Is there a NeXT Linux theme?
       | 
       | EDIT: 5 mins later I found this submission to the homepage
       | https://github.com/trunkmaster/nextspace
        
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       (page generated 2021-12-13 23:00 UTC)