| Re: [cross-project-issues-dev] Text and / or Icons on Buttons / Toolbar Items |
I would like to point to a somewhat official resource, the Eclipse UI guidelines at https://wiki.eclipse.org/User_Interface_Guidelines. Those don't give a definitive answer, but they tell this: https://wiki.eclipse.org/User_Interface_Guidelines#The_Spirit_of_Eclipse is all about consistency. https://wiki.eclipse.org/User_Interface_Guidelines#Graphic_Types lists all the different kinds of icons used in eclipse (and buttons are not mentioned there). That being said, my own point of view is: Icons are useful for displaying "object information" generally (that is the icons in trees or tables etc.). They are also useful when space is limited (toolbars) or a selection is necessary from many things (menu items). But for typical button rows of 3 to 5 buttons I cannot imagine they improve the user interaction, according to the "we can deal with 5 to 7 things at once" theory. So to me adding icons to all those button rows would mean big effort, less consistency with existing external plugins, and probably neglectable benefit. Ciao, Michael