Windows icon overlays - alternatives, improvements and thoughts?

Question

As Cody Gray mentioned when answering my other question here, Raymond Chen talks about how icon overlays are a poor choice here (note that the article is a year old).

The substantive argument against overlays is that only one can be shown at a time... so if two apply, which one wins? The specious argument is that there can only be 15 - which in my opinion is a design choice by Microsoft, not an argument against their efficacy.

With the changing topology of file:

• location
• management
• ownership
• synchronization
• replication
• ?????

I believe Files and folders need the equivalent of presence indicators to instantly identify their status.

What is an alternative to icon overlays that presents the same instant visual queue on the status of a file/folder? Maybe there needs to be a new model for icons?

Edit:

2010-12-14 The more I've thought about this, the more I feel that the idea that there can only be ONE overlay and that there's no way to make overlays work together is ridiculous.

Unless there's a technical reason you cannot have more than one overlay?

Consider (off the top of my head):

• You could segment the icon into 4 quadrants (upper left, upper right, etc) - this would allow for 4 overlays per icon. No inter-overlay adaptation required.
• You could stack overlays, and ONLY use priority to determine position (z-order anybody?). Allow the user access to User-space priorities, so the USER (you know, the person who the software is supposed to serve?) can choose which overlays matter. Rather than reserving a spot for an overlay, system overlays have the highest priority.

Cathrinecathryn

Answer 1

• If there is one condition needing an overlay, simply show the one overlay.
• If there is more than one condition needing an overlay, layer them all as suggested in the question. Then, the window manager would need to provide an extra UI element indicating that "there's more to know here". Perhaps it only shows up on a mouse hover? Anyway, clicking on that element could show details about the overlay conditions for those who REALLY want to know, but it would be hidden away for the 99.99% of the time when no one cares.

Soares

I'm accepting this as the answer for now... cuz I apparently asked one of those questions that doesn't have a specific answer. – Cathrinecathryn

Answer 2

One way would be to add a new Status column in details view, displaying the "presence indicator" in localized plain text.

It would be accessible, wouldn't mess with the file's icon, and would be understandable by all users regardless of their culture or their possible ailments.

Mulderig

Unfortunately, this is apparently not possible in Vista/Win7 if you want the column to apply to all filetypes. (Except in alternative file managers which haven't inexplicably dropped the old columns interface.) Quote from the TortoiseCVS devs (and the separate TortoiseSVN team have said the same thing): "Microsoft has decided to remove the IColumnProvider interface that TortoiseCVS relies on. Instead, Microsoft suggests to use the new property system. Unfortunately, the property system only supports adding handlers for specific file extensions, and can therefore not be used for this purpose." – Diuresis

@Leo, that's unfortunate indeed. I suppose you can't use .* in a property handler to have it apply to all file types? – Cellulose

I'm not sure. There is a "*" file type under HKCR in the registry but I don't know if it can be used for this purpose. The TortoiseCVS and TortoiseSVN devs don't seem to think so but I've never looked into it myself. (I don't use Windows Explorer for a million other reasons, so I'm happy with things using the old IColumnProvider interface. :)) – Diuresis

Don't bother; I've previously tried to register a property handler for "*" but it does not work. The only other shell extension that I know of that can be registered for all files is the Property Sheet Handler; unfortunately, you would have to right-click each individual file and select your custom sheet. Obviously this is not an acceptable solution. Things like Tortoise are the exception rather than the rule, and Microsoft's design decisions apparently didn't put much weight on the exception. For Vista/7, there is no viable solution using Explorer as your host. – Release

I'm also not really impressed with the idea of using the details view - this doesn't allow for a quick overview of status for multiple files in a folder (e.g. answering the question, why is this folder marked as changed?). – Cathrinecathryn

This is what OneDrive now does, and a developer explained that it was because the overlay method wasn't flexible enough. It frequently displays multiple status icons simultaneously in its "Status" column. – Unconscionable