Re: [dev] [wmii] widgets with graphics?

From: Connor Lane Smith <cls_AT_lubutu.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:04:39 +0100

Hey,

On 22 December 2011 14:44, dtk <dtk_AT_gmx.de> wrote:
> I just saw it
> yesterday in awesome[0] and think it was a pretty neat feature to
> display information in a compact yet intuitive way.

The general consensus is that sprinkling icons everywhere actually
makes the interface far more complicated and distracting, and
generally quite *bad*. While there *are* some exceptions where icons
are more compact, they are rare.

Consider the meter widgets people are obsessed with putting on their
status bars to tell you, say, the quality of your wifi signal. In 12
horizontal pixels you can very comfortably fit in two digits, which
would tell you the signal as a percentage. The same number of pixels
would, as a meter, offer only an tenth of the information, and it
would be far more difficult to distinguish 80% from 70%. Yes, text is
quite a concise medium.

I'm actually finding it difficult to think of any examples in which a
widget is more compact than text. Nothing I have on my status bar
would be, certainly.

Thanks,
cls
Received on Thu Dec 22 2011 - 16:04:39 CET