Over the past couple of weeks I've done a considerable amount of work to port ick-proxy, the disgusting URL-rewriting utility I wrote a few years ago, to run on Windows. Unlike Unix programs, Windows programs need icons; but I haven't yet been able to think of an icon design which is both (a) usefully related to the nature of the program and (b) within the scope of my drawing skills.

The function of ick-proxy is to arrange for a web browser to notice when it's asked to visit selected classes of URL, and modify the URLs into different ones before going there. I use this to append ‘?style=mine’ to nearly all Livejournal URLs I visit, so that I see everyone's LJs in my own nice readable style instead of the eye-torturing monstrosities favoured by some people who aren't me.

The method by which ick-proxy achieves this function is to load the browser with a complicated Javascript proxy configuration file which recognises specifically those URLs which require a rewrite, and tells the browser to retrieve them by going via a custom web proxy. That web proxy – the actual ick-proxy program itself – handles requests for rewrite-requiring URLs by returning a 302 response (temporary redirect) pointing at the rewritten URL. The browser's proxy configuration does not in turn direct that URL to the custom proxy, so the browser retrieves it in the normal way. This means that ick-proxy is never required to do any real HTTP proxying – it's only ever called when it needs to return a 302, and in fact it will return an internal server error if you call it in any other context. If you think this entire idea is thoroughly disgusting, I wouldn't disagree (hence the name), but in fact I've been running it for four years now and it's been astonishingly robust and reliable.

However, since it just took me two longish and quite technical paragraphs to describe what the program does, it's unclear to me how I can express anything even approximating that in a 16x16 icon, or even a 32x32 one. My best idea so far is to have the icon represent the program's name rather than its function, by showing a human face screwed up with its tongue poking out in an ‘ick!’ expression. Unfortunately, I don't think I can draw that recognisably.

So, anyone else got any clever ideas for a suitable icon?