Re: [Usability] UI proposal for icon selector

[Mark Finlay <sisob tuxfamily org>]

Hey Stefan,

Thanks for looking at this. The icon chooser dialog was on my list of
big bad dialogs, and I had some thoughts similar to yours about it, but
never got to doing a mockup..

> One thing, however, that has bugged me from the start was the process 
> of selecting icons for the apps on my desktop. Here's what I don't 
> like about the current dialog. Continue reading, because I'm also 
> adding my thoughts about how to improve it.

Yeah, the process of creating a Launcher is pretty hideous in general. I
posted about the main launcher dialog recently, it'd be great to get the
icon chooser improved too.

> 1. The icon list defaults to /usr/share/pixmaps, it doesn't remember 
> the last directory I used.

Agreed. And as you (or your mockup, can't remember) later point out,
paths should not be used at all unless the user wants to use a custom
image. 

> 2. When I click browse I'm supposed to search the entire file system 
> for the icon I'd like to use. I've read some stuff about icon themes 
> on freedesktop.org concerning the standardized locations where icons 
> might be stored. I can find these locations, but I guess Joe target 
> user of GNOME would not.

Agreed.


> 3. The file selector allows me to pick a png file directly. So from 
> now on I'm spending the rest of the time with the file selector. The 
> nice icon list has thus become useless. 

Agreed, the file selector should only be used to find custom icons, and
should default to ~/

> What I'm proposing is an overhaul of the gui so it looks and works 
> more like for example the theme selector. The icon chooser should 
> implement the logic of freedesktop.org's icon theme proposal but also 
> hide these details from the user. In fact, the user shouldn't have to 
> care about all those paths where icons might be stored 
> (/usr/share/pixmaps, /usr/share/icons, ~/.icons). The dialog should, 
> however, not stop power users from picking any image file they have 
> in mind.

Agreed

> 
> As an image speaks more than a thousand words, here's what I came up 
> with in the gimp:
> http://www.chromosomnia.org/_img/icon-chooser01.png

I like this in general, but I think that with a little more thought we
can get rid of some of the Advanced Options and make it "just work" a
little more.


> How does it work? (Having to explain it obviously means it's not a 
> good design, but I'll do it anyway ;-)
> 
> - I think that there are two kinds of users to cater to: 
> unexperienced users who "just likes to see the other icons available" 
> and the rest who has probably just created a new launcher on the 
> desktop for an application he just compiled/installed but which 
> didn't supply an icon.

I'd say it's mostly used for custom launchers with a fringe usage case
for people changing the icon for launchers that shipped with the apps.
But then i could be wrong

> - Inexperienced users would be confronted with the icon list which 
> looks quite a bit like it used to be. There would, however, be a way 
> to group the icons so the list wouldn't have to hold hundreds of 
> icons (worst case).

Agreed, needs to be catagorised.

> The options in the drop down would roughly correspond to the 
> directory names used by the icon themes. Wording, of course, is to be 
> debated. But I was thinking along the lines of:
>   * Application icons (contains icons of "apps" directory)
>   * System icons (filesystems and devices directories)
>   * File icons (mimetypes dir)
>   * Miscellaneous (everything in /usr/share/pixmaps and maybe stock 
> icons?)

We'd need to come up with some decent descriptive names for these, and
don't forget the stock icons that are now in gnome-icon-theme. There are
hundreds if not thousands of them.

> - What's listed in the icon list? All the icons in the 48x48 
> directory of the current icon theme AND the 48x48 default icons of 
> /usr/share/icons/gnome. If the current icon theme uses SVG icons, the 
> scalable directory will obviously be used.

Hmm, what if an icon theme has 24x24 icons that don't have 48x48
equivelents. Should we show them? After all once can create launchers
for menus and panels as well.

> If the current icon theme contains an icon that is also supplied by 
> the default theme only the themed icon would be shown. The user 
> would't be able to see every icon of every icon theme. But that's a 
> compromise I think is reasonable for unexperienced users. Power 
> users, please read on.
> 
> - The "Show more icons from other themes" option would, when checked, 
> reload the icon list to include duplicate file names as well. For 
> one, the previously hidden default icons will be added. Moreover, 
> icons supplied by other installed icon themes would be added. I don't 
> know yet how to show them in the icon list. Duplicate file names or 
> rather group them somehow?

I think that a dropdown list that lets you choose between all available
icon theme's would be a better way to do this. There is no reason why a
user shouldn't be able to browse all of them, but having a checkbox that
will display Application or whatever icons from all themes at the same
time would probably be icon overload.

> 
> - The "Allow this icon to be replaced when switching themes" 
> determines how the user's selection is saved in the .desktop file. If 
> unchecked, the complete path is saved which means the icon would 
> always stay the same. If checked, however, only the file name is 
> saved. The icon would change depending on which icon theme has been 
> selected.
> 
> The default for this should be "unchecked" because I think users 
> might get confused if icons they've explicitly chosen are changed by 
> the system for no apparent reason.

Hmm, I'm not sure how useful this is. Need to think about it. I'd be
enclined to think that this option is crack and that custom launchers
should never change with themes. But then it might be useful...


> - The last option would, when checked, disable all the widgets above 
> and enable the file picker. Thus, power users may pick any file they 
> want.

Yeah, this is needed, but I think that maybe it could be done better. I
don't have a solution yet, but I was thinking that it would useful to be
able to tell the dialog to browse a custom folder. Then you could pick
an icon from there, using the dialog and not the file open dialog.

> - Finally, the whole dialog applies changes immidiately. The "revert" 
> button is used to restore the previous icon if the user decided to 
> abort.

Sounds ok, except when you are creating a new launcher and there is
nothing yet to change, then this wouldn't make sense.

> So, that's my proposal. I just hope that this hasn't been discussed 
> or implemented yet (couldn't find anything in the archives though). 
> Please add your comments :-)

Not that I know of. One thing that also bothered me about the dialog is
that it was way too small. it's 4x3 just like yours. I'd much prefer to
see 5x4 or 6x5. The way it is atm makes scrolling really troublesome.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I'm in a rush so i apologies for anything
that doesn't make sense.

-- 
Mark Finlay 
Computer Science Student

E-Mail:	sisob_AT_tuxfamily_DOT_org
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 	http://advogato.org/person/sisob