Unicode character for PUZZLE PIECE?

Question

Is there an Unicode symbol representing puzzle pieces? There are lots of seldomly used dingbats in Unicode, and I sort of don't really remember - but suspect there's one for this too. However, I couldn't find anything like it in gucharmap, because it's probably not complete (lacks Klingon!). And neither in the tables on unicode.org/charts/ - there's too much to look through manually..

So, has anybody seen a PUZZLE character?

Alternative question: What else would you use as symbol for application plugins?

Answer 1

The Unicode Consortium doesn't list a puzzle character.

And really, even if it did, I'm not sure you should use it. It relies on that glyph being available in the font you're distributing, and that's far from a sure thing, especially for the more obscure characters.

This is, for me, the canonical "plugin icon":

And I can think of two routes to go:

• If you're sold on having it be a character you can create your own font, using Fontlab or something similar, then distribute the font along with your app. It turns out to be easier than it might seem. This has the advantage that you can treat the "plugin" picture just as another piece of text.

• Better may be to just use an graphic. Including a graphic is easier, and works just as well if you're trying to use it for an icon or button.