Using Icons from the Library

Introduction

The various collections of icons are provided for people to use when creating pages for The University of York's World-Wide Web service, YorkWeb.

If you are...

• ...a member of the University of York you can make use of these icons in your YorkWeb pages.

  Do not take copies of these icons; instead link to them here in the Icon Library.

• ...at another site you are welcome to take copies of the icons to store on your own server, but should not simply link to the icons stored here on our server.

Think Before You Leap!

Judicious use of the icons provided can brighten up pages and lend them a touch of individuality and humour.

Used to excess they can significantly slow down the speed at which the page loads.

Always ask yourself...

• Do I really need this image?
• Is the combination of icons and colours æsthetically pleasing?
• Does my page look good, or is it an unpleasant clutter?
• Have I remembered people with text-only Web browsers, and provided a textual alternative to the image using the ALT= option?

Using an Icon

The various collections of icons can be accessed from the YorkWeb Icon Library page.

Each collection has its own index page which displays the icon and its full URL. Suggestions as to the use of the icons may also be included.

An icon can be included at any point in a Web page by quoting its full URL in an IMG SRC tag. In most situations the http://www.york.ac.uk prefix can be omitted and the resulting partial URL can be used for brevity. See the second example below.

Remember that some people use text-only Web browsers, or may have turned off automatic loading of images; you will need to provide a textual alternative, possibly an empty string.

Examples

This piece of HTML uses a full URL and includes a textual alternative for the icon...

<IMG SRC="http://www.york.ac.uk/icons/arrows/hand-right.gif" ALT="-&GT;"> An important note

...and displays this...

An important note

This piece of HTML uses a partial URL and includes an empty textual alternative for the icon...

Play the <A HREF="/a-link/to/a-sound-file">
<IMG SRC="/icons/types/sound.gif" ALT=""> sound clip</A> now.

...and displays this (this example isn't set up to play a sound!)...

Play the sound clip now.