mime-type icons, a proposal

[Frans Englich]

On Friday 01 October 2004 11:12, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-09-29 at 11:03 -0700, Ryan Gammon wrote:
<SNIP>
> These are essentially two different approaches, app-centric and
> document-type-centric. I think we'll find it hard to reach consensus on
> one of them on this list. So perhaps we should make the system allow
> both somehow and leave this up to the desktops?

AFAICT, in practice it would mean the lookup approach(the pseudo code) would 
allow two alternatives, or be loosely specified. This could complicate since 
the Free Desktop platform would be indeterminate.

It can be argued that it is two different usability paradigms which are 
equally relevant, but I think it's a theoretical discussion. I can't think of 
any way how the application oriented approach could lead to a better result 
_usability_ wise -- they try to achieve the same thing, while the one is way 
far off. Branding, on the contrary..

Mac OS X and GNOME[1] are heavily document oriented with functional approach. 
Windows has its usual lack of personality, and heavy commercial orientation. 
From following the discussion around the GNOME menu a couple of months ago, 
this is the last thing they would implement(AFAICT). It could be spec'ed, but 
I wonder who would implement it.

This is about branding. We could gather together a bunch of major companies, 
and ask what they honestly think is best -- for everyone -- regarding 
software patents, EULAs, open source/proprietary, etc, and we know what they 
would answer. I think we simply need to hold our grounds. Or that someone 
thoroughly explains why the application oriented approach is better or could 
be relevant(from the User's perspective).


Cheers,

		Frans

1.
KDE excluded due to it's IMO lack of conscious design.