The emblems on icons give hints to the user about files and folders, however these mainly have to be added manually. Examples of more dynamic emblems are the read-only and symbolic link emblems.
I propose that more icon emblems be made which are dynamically allocated. These could even be animated and programmatically updated. Emblems could indicate things like:
* this file is being downloaded (with progress bar)
* this file has an unsaved version open
* this file is being accessed by another user
* this device is unsafe to remove
* this device is safe to remove
* a device's free space (as a progress bar)
* this version controlled folder can be updated
and so on
Applications could even add and update emblems on their own icons. For example:
* email programs could show an unread message count
* news programs could show an unread story count
* messaging programs could show a status icon
* messaging programs could show an unread message counter
* networked applications could show when they're disconnected
* editing programs could show if there are documents to be recovered
* downloading/transferring programs (like BitTorrent) could show a progress bar (or bars)
I would not go as far as allowing interactive elements (like play/next/etc. buttons on a music player) since these would interfere with the icon's main function, plus such things are more like full-blown applets/widgets/screenlets.
A nice benefit of this approach would be the ability to display a large amount of information completely in context (ie. only the information relevant to the displayed icons will be shown)
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