Improving the current STDISK

[fragglet]

STDISK contains the image that flashes at the bottom right of the screen (in vanilla and on some source ports) when data is being loaded from disk. The current Freedoom STDISK looks like this:

After updating STCDROM (#1089) I decided to set my sights on STDISK as well since I think it can be improved. I came up with this, which I think is an improvement:

However, I think it's a good point to think about whether something better should be used instead of a floppy disk, because:

1. Floppy disks are an obsolete technology nowadays
2. The remaining use of floppy disks as a symbol is as "save" icons, so the STDISK usage is backwards compared to that (load instead of save). It could imply something is being written to disk, which isn't the case.

I came up with a couple of alternatives. Note that in the following designs the black background is unavoidable since vanilla Doom doesn't support transparency for STDISK.

The first is inspired by the Gnome save icon:

This depicts a hard drive with a green arrow implying data is being read from it. This design has a couple of problems. Firstly, it's not a common icon that users are used to seeing. Secondly, the small 16x16 resolution means that it's perhaps hard to identify what it is, especially since the icon flashes up on the screen only very briefly.

The second is an hourglass:

The nice thing about this one is that it's something very familiar to anyone who's used a computer. One downside is that it just depicts that "you have to wait" but not "why" you're having to wait.

[mc776]

wait, i thought STCDROM was that icon?

what's STCDROM for then?

[mc776]

What kind of static icon represents loading?

In a lot of programs that use disk for save, open is a folder... a folder icon with a stopwatch in the corner should be readable.

Or... an AGM infinity symbol coloured like a loading spinny...

[fragglet]

What kind of static icon represents loading? In a lot of programs that use disk for save, open is a folder... a folder icon with a stopwatch in the corner should be readable.

I think there's a pretty big difference between "Open" (an action that the user takes to open a file) and "Loading" (you're being made to wait for some reason). I think my favourite here is the hourglass for this reason because it's the most recognizable.

Or... an AGM infinity symbol coloured like a loading spinny...

Heh, I'm not sure I like the infinity symbol here in terms of what it represents to the user who's being made to wait 😄

what's STCDROM for then?

Some of the CDROM versions of Doom were installable to hard disk but also intended to be playable directly from the CDROM (config file and savegames were still saved to hard drive). When run with -cdrom, vanilla Doom will do this and it switches from using STDISK to STCDROM instead. Hence why on Discord I called yesterday's PR to improve STCDROM "possibly the most pointless PR I've ever put time into". But it made me feel good - I quite like putting effort into improving some of the more obscure details of the Freedoom WADs.

[mc776]

For what it's worth, I only suggested the AGM infinity because the ouroboros shape of the conventional modern spinny already communicates that to me 😅

[Calinou]

I'd go for the hourglass as well. It's not like you're very likely to see that icon on a modern PC (even a 10 year old one) nowadays 🙂

[mc776]

Not a huge fan of hourglass waiting-icons since it feels like it's flashing this "X" at the viewer which I always felt was kinda hostile, but of the symbols posted it is the most instantly recognizable for the purpose.

Could it be made a bit wider and fatter though, just to fill up the space (and look a bit less like an X)?

[SenhorFlibble]

I like the blue floppy icon for sure!

The hourglass icon is a bit too generic of a concept, and the version shown does not look very clearly like an hourglass and not something else.

[mc776]

Looking at these again and I think the Gnome-style one is the best.

Blue floppy is good, but I'd have two issues:

• Doom is also blue floppy - could use a different colour.
• It really does look too confusingly similar to a save icon and might give the wrong impression that it's autosaving when it's not.

[mc776]

An attempt to make the arrow a bit more high-contrast since we're expecting to see this thing for like a fraction of a second at a time:

[mc776]

The most common symbol for opening a file is something coming out of a yellow file folder, so here's an idea for that (one using the above arrow and the other using two smaller arrows to give the impression of movement):

[mc776]

Single arrow folder with some touchups:

[EDIT: the back part might be a bit too tall, here's an edit with it shrunk]

[mc776]

and taken down to the correct size of 16x15:

[Xindage]

i would like to have the floppy, it looks cool.