I am a Windows user and I have been using Windows since the very early stage. The first Windows I have ever used was Windows 3.0, and unlike an operating system, it was to me a kind of fancy application running on DOS (disk operating system). I clearly remember that to install a Windows 3.1 took about more than an hour on my 80386 PC and it was stored on 12 separated 5 inch floppy disks. Now let’s have a look at the revolution of Windows icons.

Logo

First, it needs to be the logos, each product of the Windows family has its own logo. Here are the logos from the very first version until the latest one. I didn’t show some of the server version of Windows (e.g. Windows NT and Windows Server 2003).

Early Icons

As in the early version like Windows 1.0 or 2.0, there are hardly any icons in the user interface (UI). But from windows 3.0, icons were widely used and in Windows 3.1, they became more colourful (it was 16 colours at that time).

The Common Icons

From Windows 95, Microsoft introduced start menu and it was a revolutional concept. Of course, icons are widely used in everywhere since then. on the start menu, task bar, file explorer, etc. Here we selected a number of the most common icons in Windows system and see how did they changed during the 15 years.

I didn’t put Windows 7 icons on the list as they are too close to the icons in Vista. In Windows 95, icons are in 16 colours. They were upgraded into 256 colours in Windows 98 although the design are almost the same. In Windows 2000, MS change some of the icons designs especially desktop icons like My Computer, Network Place, etc. Windows 2000 supported to use icons in 16M colours. From Windows XP, more colours are used and the alpha blend channel was enable which means the icons are in 32-bits with alpha channel transparency. Normal icon size are changed into 48×48 pixels rather than 32×32 pixels previously. When Windows Vista released the fresh design of Windows icons was really an impress to everyone and the larger icon sizes are supported (e.g. up to 256×256 pixels)

Here let’s have a look at the Control Panel icons in Windows Vista which contains very good detail in a large size of 128×128 pixels.

Summary

To me, Windows made a good effort in improving the quality of their icons. However, if you look very carefully, you will find in the latest windows, some old icons are still being used in some where which to me is a kind of incomplete transfer or upgrade. Hopefully, Microsoft can produce more and better icon design in the future products.

BCGControlBar Pro (by BCGSoft) is a very good graphic user interface (GUI) library for MFC developer. It has recently been integrated into the MFC library in Visual Studio .NET 2008. The .NET version library is also available. But to me BCGControlBar Pro is the most powerful lib for GUI development as it implement many nice UI features in typical windows applications. Most of the features are taken from Microsoft products such as Ribbon in Office 2007, Outlook like sidebar, intelligent docking.

I have been using BCGControlBar Pro for 7 years since when I was in the second year as a undergraduate student. I got a BCGControlBar Pro version 6.3 from my tutor and was required to do some development of a medical software. Actually, only a few nice features were used in that application. Below I would like to introduce some nice features of BCGControlBar Pro and their applications in developments.

Ribbon

In the windows applications, ribbons are graphical user interface widgets composed of a strip across the top of a window that exposes all functions that a program can perform in a single place. Additional ribbons may appear based on the context of the data. Ribbons aim to enhance usability; by consolidating the program’s functions and commands in an easily recognizable place, one need not look through multiple levels of hierarchical menus, toolbars or task panes before finding the right command.

Ribbon UI is one of the most successful UI elements or concepts in a Windows application. It is originally developed by Microsoft and implemented in Office 2007. BCGControlBar introduced the Ribbon UI classes in June 2006 in the BCGControlBar Pro version 9.0. It reproduced most of MS Ribbon UI functions although there were a number of bugs which have been fixed in the following releases.

Here are some screen shots of the demo application from BCGSoft including Ribbon MDI demo, Ribbon Gadgets and Ribbon DialogBar. MDI demo is suitable for all typies of functional editor. The Gadgets demo is useful in many business of technic software solutions as it shows how to put controls on the Ribbon tabs. The third one is slightly different, controls in a Ribbon UI style have been put into the left sidebar.

Since Microsoft introduced Ribbon UI, many companies changed their UI in a Ribbon style such as Autodesk AutoCAD series. More and more users are now familiar with Ribbon UI. In the lastest version 10.3, BCGControlBar Pro introduces the Windows 7 Scenic Ribbon. It provides a slightly different Ribbon style.

Toolbar, Menu, Docking Control Bars

Toolbar and menu are normal control in MFC development or Windows applications. MFC library contains basic classes for toolbar and menu which is static. BCGControlBar Pro provides docking toolbar and docking menu and supports 32-bit true colour image. Also, docking control bars is a very useful feature in an application which allows users customise their own workspace.

Outlook Bar and Calendar

BCGControlBar reproduces the appearance of most of the controls in the MS Outlook application. The side navigation bar, the list control, the report control and the calendar. These are very useful in the development of a business software. But to me some elements are not fully customisable without rewrite the classes. Also, recently, BCGControlBar introduces the Gantt Control. Users can add and edit of the Gantt events freely.

Other Features

There are a number of other nice features which I like about this library such as professional editor, list view, tab view, grid view, popup window, task pane, toolbox control. Also it provides customise skins, colour schemes. However, still there are some bugs in these classes. I did report one or two in the forum of BCGSoft. One has been solved, the other one about the professional editor has not been solved yet. The editor wrapping problem is one of the biggest problem to me currently.

Overall, I highly recommend this lib to MFC developers. I haven’t used the .NET lib in a commercial project yet, but I do believe it will be easy to use. However, BCGControlBar is only a lib for the implementation of many elements or controls in a windows application. The real GUI design is about how to organise these controls in a good layout, how to make an end user feel the software is easy to use.

All the screen shots are taken from BCGSoft (www.bcgsoft.com). If you are interested in this product, please visit www.bcgsoft.com for demos and download which they provide.

Have you been ever in a development of the GUI of an application? Will you share some of your GUI design?