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Idea #10576: Dynamic emblems for icons

Written by Warbo the 1 Jul 08 at 17:48. Related project: Gnome. Status: New
Rationale
There is a lot going on at the same time in an Ubuntu system, and it is desirable to get access to a lot of information about this very quickly and very easily. A big problem in trying this, however, is that in order to get the desired information on screen it is often necessary to display a lot of confusing information at a time, or else display less stuff but have a greater risk of missing what the user wanted. This requires contextual information (ie. information relevant to whatever the user is doing), and an understandable way to represent it.

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Solution #1: More dynamic emblems for icons
Written by Warbo the 1 Jul 08 at 17:48.
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)

This could be accomplished using completely animated icons, but the stackable quality of emblems would be more desirable and would require less effort.

Aside from being very useful and incredibly cool, this could offer applications an alternative to abusing the notification area with perpetual icons. Instead they can add functionality to any of their panel launchers. The advantages would be that the icon will be there even if the application is closed, users can move around each icon individually and that the panel already has all of the infrastructure for adding and removing icons, taking that responsibility away from the applications.

PS: Extra special points for doing it in a standardised way for potential cross-platform/desktopness :)

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Comments
francois wrote on the 2 Jul 08 at 07:44
great!

andruk (Idea reviewer) wrote on the 2 Jul 08 at 08:13
The only thing I wonder about is what program will update the icon? If a text editor crashed while it was editing 3 documents, then it would have to be run before it could update its own icon, making this feature (for that specific case) useless.

Needs a bit more fleshing out, but

+1, innovative.

Jadd wrote on the 2 Jul 08 at 08:37
It's needs thinking through, but if GNOME managed to implement this, it would be fantastic.

BadChoice wrote on the 2 Jul 08 at 14:36
One of the best ideas I've seen!!

glotz wrote on the 2 Jul 08 at 19:21
I personally don't like too much information. K.I.S.S.

vrangforestillinger wrote on the 7 Jul 08 at 15:28
I like the part with being able to see how much space there is on a device etc. But having email icons show unread messages without the email program being open etc etc, Im afraid that the amount of background proc. will become too large.

+1 Its a good idea, but only up to a certain bloatware-point..

Endolith wrote on the 8 Jul 08 at 13:51
Great idea.

Auzy wrote on the 8 Jul 08 at 13:58
This is a good idea, and helps improve feedback

cumulus007 wrote on the 10 Jul 08 at 10:31
Really cool idea!

mprince wrote on the 11 Jul 08 at 17:35
+1 and a bookmark, too.

aantn wrote on the 27 Sep 08 at 16:52
I believe AWN already supports this for applications, but it definitely could be used elsewhere as well.

I'm planning on playing around with something similar as described here: http://theesylum.com/2008/09/25/making-icons-more-useful/. (Sorry for the shameless self-advertising, but I'd rather not copy over a whole post.) If anyone wants to write up a brainstorm idea on the topic then that would be great. (If not, I'll eventually get around to doing it myself.)

+1

simo_magic wrote on the 17 Dec 08 at 15:59
the icons should be customizable by the icon theme, of course

Endolith wrote on the 17 Dec 08 at 20:44
Aside from being very useful and incredibly cool, this could offer applications an alternative to abusing the notification area with perpetual icons. Instead they can add functionality to any of their panel launchers.

You mean like Apple's dock? :)


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