Harman Patil (Editor)

Share icon

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A share icon is a user interface icon intended to convey to the user a button for performing a share action.

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Share Icon

The most commonly used share icon was introduced in 2006, known as the Share Icon, produced by WordPress developer Alex King for ShareThis and licensed under four licenses: the share-alike GPL and LGPL, and the permissive BSD license and Creative Commons Attribution 2.5. ShareThis produces widgets for accessing social networking services from a single pop-up menu.

Open Share Icon

The Open Share Icon (or Shareaholic icon) is designed to help users easily identify shareable content. The icon aims to convey the act of sharing visually by representing one hand passing an object to another hand, while also representing an eye meaning "look at this." The icon was designed by the company Shareaholic, and made available under a Creative Commons share-alike license, with the restriction that "clear attribution and a hyperlink back to this page in a prominent location near to the image is required".

The Open Share Icon is supported by Ken Rossi (creator of the widely used OPML icons) and Bruce McKenzie (GeoTag icons), and is used by hundreds of websites and applications, including SmugMug, the Shareaholic Firefox addon, Wikia, NetworkWorld, Weather Underground, Princeton University, and Google. It is also proposed for use in the Mozilla Add-ons Directory.

Apple

Another icon called the Share icon is a user interface icon used through Apple's products, which is a box with an arrow jumping out to the right. This icon is used on several Apple products:

  • In iOS's iWork, for sharing work on iWork.com.
  • In Mobile Safari, to show a menu of options: "Add Bookmark," "Add to Home Screen," "Mail Link to this Page," and "Print."
  • In QuickTime X, to show the iTunes, MobileMe Gallery, YouTube, and trim options
  • References

    Share icon Wikipedia