[ubuntu-art] trash icon looks like a battery

[Sven Jaborek]

Hi Matthew,
Hi ubuntu-artists,

i dont think the icon is a problem. Instead, perhaps this makes people
and developers think about better ways to program and use trash.

The trash-can as it works now is useless anyway. It has got two jobs:
1) u can use it to drop files on it
2) u should be able to see if trash is getting big

It doesnt fit for 1 because its to tricky to drop on a icon that small,
who is really doing this. I have no study about this, but i use del-key
or the context menu.

It doesnt do its second job better, it only knows full and empty. If you
drop a zero-size file into it - the icon tells you its full. Not really
logical. People always think they have to clean up.
If you handover the icon, what more information do you get? "There are
23 files in your trash." U nice - is this good or bad?

Therefore people dont use the trash like they should, perhaps someone
makes a google code of summer project from this issues. I suggest we
remove the icon completly because it doesnt work good, replace it with a
applet that gives you overall information for your harddisk, the icon
would look similar to a cylinder. Like IBM's harddrive icon.
If you mouseover it, you would get information like you get in df.
Extended with cleanup helpers like, how much % or MB does trash take,
how much space do ubuntu updates in /var/cache/apt/archives take.
Pop-Up messages like the notification area has, could tell about limits
you can define for folders.

ups, got a little OT for ubuntu-art - but i had some ideas flowing...

regards, Sven

Am Dienstag, den 25.04.2006, 09:18 -0500 schrieb Matthew Nuzum:
> Is it just me or does anyone else here look at the trash can icon in
> the bootom right corner of the screen and freak out because they think
> their battery is low?
> 
> It's in almost the same location as Windows' battery notification icon
> and it looks like a battery that is nearly empty.
> 
> I'm no good at making icons, but I think if it could just be tapered
> so that it's not a perfect cylinder it would be fine. But as it is,
> being a perfect cylinder, it looks like a battery to me.
> 
> I keep getting a moment of panic and wonder where the nearest outlet
> is, then I remember that I'm already plugged in and think it's a bug.
> Then I click on it to investigate it and realize it's the trash. This
> has happened at least 3 times already, so soon I'll learn I guess.
> 
> Should I file a trouble ticket for this?
> 
> --
> Matthew Nuzum
> www.bearfruit.org