They are limited in size, with the standard size about a thumbnail for both desktop computer systems and mobile devices.

The design of all computer icons is constricted by the limitations of the device display. Although icons are usually depicted in graphical user interfaces, icons are sometimes rendered in a TUI using special characters such as MouseText or PETSCII. These commercial icons serve as functional links on the system to the program or data files created by a specific software provider. Synecdoche is considered as a special case of metonymy, in the usual sense of the part standing for the whole such as a single component for the entire system, speaker driver for the entire audio system settings.Īdditionally, a group of icons can be categorised as brand icons, used to identify commercial software programs and are related to the brand identity of a company or software. Metonymy is in itself a subset of metaphors that use one entity to point to another related to it such as using a fluorescent bulb instead of a filament one to represent power saving settings. The majority of icons are encoded and decoded using metonymy, synecdoche, and metaphor.Īn example of metaphorical representation characterizes all the major desktop-based computer systems including desktop that uses an iconic representation of objects from the 1980s office environment to transpose attributes from a familiar context/object to an unfamiliar one. Icons as parts of the graphical user interface of the computer system, in conjunction with windows, menus and a pointing device (mouse), belong to the much larger topic of the history of the graphical user interface that has largely supplanted the text-based interface for casual use. In activating an icon, the user can move directly into and out of the identified function without knowing anything further about the location or requirements of the file or code. Their placement on the screen, also in relation to other icons, may provide further information to the user about their usage.

The user can activate an icon using a mouse, pointer, finger, or recently voice commands.

It can serve as an electronic hyperlink or file shortcut to access the program or data. The icon itself is a quickly comprehensible symbol of a software tool, function, or a data file, accessible on the system and is more like a traffic sign than a detailed illustration of the actual entity it represents. In computing, an icon is a pictogram or ideogram displayed on a computer screen in order to help the user navigate a computer system. Desktop icons for file/data transfer, clock/awaiting, and running a program.

Can t move icons on desktop windows 7