The occasional scrivener

Ugly XML icon

Some people want us all to use the ubiquitous XML icon. Other people think it’s ugly. And some of us wouldn’t care one way or another — myself included — if we didn’t know that Dave Winer is responsible for it.

Anyway, I’m replacing that icon with a blogbutton: . But before I banish it into the bit bucket, I’ll share with you how it’s made. It’s not an image, but a bit of CSS:

<a title="RSS 1.0" href="http://gustaf.symbiandiaries.com/weblog/weblog/index.rdf"
   style="border:1px solid; border-color:#FC9 #630 #330 #F96;
   padding:0 3px;font:bold 10px verdana,sans-serif;
   color:#FFF;background:#F60;text-decoration:none;margin:0;">XML</a>

that looks like this when rendered: XML.

Cool huh? I got it off the net somewhere along the way. Thought I’d share. If someone owns up to claim authorship, drop my a line.

I might add that my objections to the icon is not primarily aesthetic (after all, the replacement is orange too, but that’s OK, because orange is the new black) but functional. The XML icon implies something else than a link to a syndication feed. I must admit I was puzzled the first time I encountered it. Then I found out what it was for. But it is puzzling. The new icon at least advertises what it is in a better way.

Update: Ned has another CSS logo.

Updated on Thursday, 2005-10-06. Posted at 14:33, in the scrivener category. Comments [0]
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