Re: Removing 'Backgrounds and Emblems'

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

On Tue, 2010-07-27 at 13:10 +0200, Cosimo Cecchi wrote: 
> On Tue, 2010-07-27 at 12:55 +0200, John Keller wrote:
> 
> > Removing emblems is a little unfortunate for me personally because I
> > used them as a fast way to customize folders in my home with nicely
> > drawn artwork. But I can understand the reasons why, and they really are
> > much more appropriate as part of a larger vision of metadata and
> > keywords, as you mention.
> 
> Yeah, as you say there's still the option of using a custom icon
> altogether for that purpose...we could also eventually implement
> something like colored labels, as Finder does.

Yes, we need a good method of allowing the marking of files and folders.
Coloured labels are one option. They're nice because they're quick and
simple to use. I wonder whether there are any other options we could
investigate though?

> > Is there any plan to make the custom icon option more user-discoverable?
> > Right now, you need to know that you can click the icon in the
> > properties dialog box. Not bad if you click everywhere or read the help,
> > but otherwise...
> 
> Ideas are welcome on how to make that more prominent in the UI; maybe a
> tooltip over the icon in the properties view? Or a label beneath it?

Custom icons are OK, but they're fairly labour intensive, and there are
some issues with the current UI. Also, they have a similar problem to
emblems - they're predefined by the system, and they're used by some
apps. Ideally, we'd have a separate customisation facility which is only
used by users.

Allan
--
IRC: aday on irc.gnome.org