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Trying to understand different icons in Hierarchy

Discussion in '2018.3 Beta' started by Peter77, Oct 2, 2018.

  1. Peter77

    Peter77

    QA Jesus

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2013
    Posts:
    6,609
    I see three different icons in the Hierarchy for GameObject's and Prefabs. Is there a document that explains what the different icons represent?

    1. Blue Cube = Prefab Instance
    2. Gray Cube = GameObject Instance
    3. Gray Cube with plus symbol = ?

    Side note:
    When I saw the the gray cube icon for the first time, I thought it indicates these objects are turned off.
     
  2. Carpe-Denius

    Carpe-Denius

    Joined:
    May 17, 2013
    Posts:
    842
    Plus symbol -> this object is added to a prefab instance
     
  3. laurentlavigne

    laurentlavigne

    Joined:
    Aug 16, 2012
    Posts:
    6,330
    +1
     
  4. laurentlavigne

    laurentlavigne

    Joined:
    Aug 16, 2012
    Posts:
    6,330
    I'd like to see the editor team pay more attention to the details, follow long established convention and respect the way the human brain perceives information.

    The Hierarchy looks busy with extra visual complexity, this is caused by the display of gray boxes, this is unnecessary because the information is redundant with no icon
    The icons are on the immediate left of the text so all relevant information (which is text) is offset, this forces the eye to skip complex visuals (icon) to access data
    Conventions are violated: gray icons which indicated disabled objects are used
    The information density doesn't match the added complexity of nested prefab because all the prefab box icons are blue, occluding the nesting depth information

    Solutions
    Remove gray icons and only show icons when the information is useful (+box, blue box)
    Move the icon to the left of the arrow
    Color the boxes with increased saturation of blue or different colors indicating nesting depth
    Color the text blue