A Selection of Cue Bullet Icons

I use these very small (roughly letter-sized) transparent GIF icons at the end of an anchor (a "link") to provide a visual cue of what to expect from the link before you visit it. Such icons have become generally known as "cue bullets" or "QBullets," although the latter term is actually a servicemark for a specific collection of cue bullets.

You'll find a nice collection of copyrighted cue bullets at Matterform Media's QBullet Page. Per their request, I use their servicemark, "QBullet," to specifically denote their cue bullets. I use QBullets, and other cue bullets that I've found or adapted from other sources.

My use of the following QBullets is more specific than that implied in the official QBullet legend; this may be worth pointing out for those of you familiar with QBullets from other pages:

Also, I use cue bullets from alternate sources for some items (such as newsgroups and directories) when I feel the alternate bullets provide a better visual cue to the type of the link.

Below is a legend of the cue bullets I use; the source is indicated for each bullet. "Baylor" denotes the Icon Page at Baylor University. Unreferenced icons are adapted from those at the Funnelweb Icon Library or from Will's Icon Page; they share many common icons whose original source is not documented.

Legend

Another web site
A web page that is not part of the present resource. A QBullet.

A link down the current page
A link that moves you down the current web page. A QBullet.

A link up the current page
A link that moves you up the current web page. A QBullet.

Textual web page ???
A web page that is largely textual. It may contain internal links or links to other pages, letting you "turn the page" (hence the bent corner!). It contains no or very minimal inline images (i.e., only bullets or rules), and so will download quickly if it isn't encyclopedic.

Plain text file
A file (often at an anonymous ftp archive or gopher site) of plain, monospaced text. A QBullet.

Page of links
A link to a web page that consists mostly of links to other pages (sometimes called a "hot list" or "jump site").

FTP directory
A directory at an anonymous FTP site (a folder is the Macintosh symbol for a directory). Adapted from an icon used by the Netscape Navigator browser.

Gopher site
A directory at a gopher site.

FAQ document
A link to a page containing answers to Frequently Asked Questions (a "FAQ"). If a web page, it's followed by the "world" icon; if plain text, it's followed by the "text" icon. A QBullet.

Send email
A link that will let you send an electronic mail message to a specific address, if your browser has that capability. A QBullet.

Usenet newsgroup
A link that will connect you to a newsgroup, if your browser has that capability. Adapted from an icon used by the Netscape Navigator browser.

News item
A file containing the plain text contents of one or more postings to a Usenet newsgroup. The file may reside at an anonymous FTP site. Most such files are short and informal (and probably weren't intended to be archived for posterity!), and they do not have links to other pages, so they're worth distinguishing from other text files and textual web pages. Adapted from an icon used by the Netscape Navigator browser.

Home Page
A link to the personal home page of an author of a web resource.

Image
An image of some kind (graphical or photographic); usually in GIF or JPEG format. Adapted from a Baylor icon.

Sound file
A link to a sound file. The format may be MP2 (MPEG Layer II, with players for multiple platforms), AU (low fidelity format, many platforms), AIFF (predominantly for Macintosh users) or WAV (predominantly for PC users). A QBullet.

A form
A link to a web page with a fill-out form. Only forms-capable browsers will be able to use the page, although many such pages also include email addresses for use by those without form fillout capability. A QBullet.

Machine-specific file (software)
This floppy disk symbol denotes a machine-specific file, usually encoded as text with a machine-specific encoding. Most such files contain software, although some may contain images or text. Most reside at an anonymous FTP archive or a gopher site. A QBullet. I try to use an adjacent icon to identify the machine type as follows:

XWindows file
This denotes a file for Unix workstations running XWindows. These files are usually binary files (possible compressed), although a few might be uuencoded text files. Adapted from a Baylor icon.

Apple Mac file
This denotes a file for Apple Macintosh computers, usually in the form of a binhex-encoded (".hqx") file. The rainbow apple is a registered trademark of Apple Computing, and was adapted from an image at the Apple Computing web site.

IBM PC file for Windows
This denotes a file for IBM PC-compatible computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, usually in the form of an zip-encoded (".zip") file. The Windows symbol is a registered trademark of Microsoft, and the Windows icon used here was adapted from a Baylor icon.

IBM PC file (non-Windows)
This denotes a file for IBM PC-compatible computers, usually in the form of an zip-encoded (".zip") file. Some may be generic text or image files, while others may be software that runs under OS/2 or DOS. The "IBM" symbol is a registered trademark of IBM; the icon used here was adapted from an image at the IBM web site.

Machine-specific archive
A directory or archive containing machine-specific files. An appended icon may denote the machine type, as above. A QBullet.

Extras/Alternates

Usenet newsgroup
A URL that will connect you to a Usenet newsgroup, if your browser has that capability. A QBullet.

Open Folder
An open folder...? Adapted from an icon used by the Netscape Navigator browser.

[This is just a dummy internal link for the above anchors!]