Nicholas Bodley wrote:

>
> I think so. They are 21st century "writing", they are graphic, and convey
> meaning. If CJK were to be re-created from scratch (pun?) today, using
> current technology, what would it look like? (Will CJK morph in coming
> decades, as computers become more widespread in that part of the world,
> especially in China?)

Icons are not writing because they do not "represent an utterance in
such a way that the utterance can be recovered more or less exactly
without the intervention of the utterer."

> Lest anyone worry, I don't want to discuss the underlying technology much.
> Other than frequent and severe restrictions on size (16 by 16 pixels is
> common) they are essentially just small digital still images. What they
> signify, and what happens when one "clicks on" them are pertinent, but
> beyond some simple basics, not important here.
>
> Although most icons are not animated, there's no fundamental reason why
> they couldn't be. (Animated icons would be extremely annoying , however,
> to some people.) Nevertheless, we now have the technology by which a glyph
> can be animated. Our basic technology permits the animation, itself, to
> change, to convey a change in meaning, although I know of no such
> instance, yet.

The cursor is animated: the watch's hands turn during "Wait," and I can
replace the watch with all sorts of animations -- I like the rotating
globe best -- and it changes shape as its available function changes as
it moves across the screen.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...