391670 - Plugin icon in the Add-ons manager looks like a sad smiley with some facial hair

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Toolkit :: Add-ons Manager, defect)

Description

[u88484]

Attachment: screenshot

Plugin icon in the Add-ons manager looks like a sad smiley and even looks like it has some facial hair due to the fuzziness of the bottom diagonal outlines.

Comment 1

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

I suppose there's a certain L10N aspect to this as well, given that electrical outlets in various parts of the world differ.

Comment 2

[Tim Tucker]

A plug vs. an outlet would at least be slightly more standard throughout the globe.  (seems like many countries have at least one 2-pronged variant)

Comment 3

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

The current icon is a cleaned up version of a placeholder image I added and was never meant to be used for this (it was originally a god awful color but the color was changed)... it was IMO due to the rush to get the theme changes done for 2.0.

beltzner, we should have generic images for extensions, themes, plugins, language packs, dictionaries, search engines, and perhaps others. We currently have one for themes and one shared by the rest. I'd suggest using the generic one used by the rest for plugins since that is also displayed in the content window when a plugin is unavailable. This could then be the image used for plugins along the top keeping in mind that even if we do redesign the ui as we've discussed where we don't have the images along the top that we will still need these images in the list. We would then need a new image for extensions, etc.

Comment 4

[John Drinkwater (:beta)]

Can people think more about the localisation issues with using sockets, especially that style of socket, etc. It’s a really bad idea imho.

Comment 5

[Jonathan Haas]

I thhink that this should be fixed. I am german and I agree that this icon looks like a sad smiley. It is not recogniseable as an (electrical) outlet, too, because in Germany they usualy look like this: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Steckdose.jpg

Another problem is, that this icon looks metallic, which doesn't seem very suitable for such things. (short circuit)

Comment 6

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

I have an idea for this.

Comment 7

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Attachment: mozilla/toolkit/themes/winstripe/mozapps/plugins/pluginGeneric.png

Comment 8

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Attachment: mozilla/toolkit/themes/pinstripe/mozapps/plugins/pluginGeneric.png

Comment 9

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Attachment: mozilla/toolkit/themes/winstripe/mozapps/extensions/viewButtons.png

Comment 10

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Attachment: mozilla/toolkit/themes/pinstripe/mozapps/extensions/viewButtons.png

Comment 11

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Attachment: patch

Comment 12

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Attachment: EM screenshot

Comment 13

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Attachment: missing plugin screenshot

Comment 14

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

(In reply to comment #3)
> beltzner, we should have generic images for extensions, themes, plugins,
> language packs, dictionaries, search engines, and perhaps others. We currently

Until we move to a single list, we'll have to do this, and it'll be good to get something into the tree that isn't the sad socket, yeah ;)

(In reply to comment #6)
> I have an idea for this.

That'll do! The only nit I have is that some plugins are for non-media file formats, but I think doing much more than this would be overkill. Maybe add something to represent interactive/gaming (for flash, java, etc)?

Comment 15

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

Comment on attachment 281673 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

>Index: toolkit/mozapps/extensions/src/nsExtensionManager.js.in
>===================================================================
>RCS file: /cvsroot/mozilla/toolkit/mozapps/extensions/src/nsExtensionManager.js.in,v
>retrieving revision 1.255
>diff -u -8 -p -r1.255 nsExtensionManager.js.in
>--- toolkit/mozapps/extensions/src/nsExtensionManager.js.in	18 Sep 2007 00:54:03 -0000	1.255
>+++ toolkit/mozapps/extensions/src/nsExtensionManager.js.in	20 Sep 2007 14:39:40 -0000
>...
>@@ -7912,16 +7913,18 @@ ExtensionsDataSource.prototype = {
>   },
> 
>   /**
>    * Get the em:iconURL property (icon url of the item)
>    */
>   _rdfGet_iconURL: function(item, property) {
>     var id = stripPrefix(item.Value, PREFIX_ITEM_URI);
>     var type = this.getItemProperty(id, "type");
>+    if (type & Ci.nsIUpdateItem.TYPE_PLUGIN)
>+      return gRDF.GetResource(URI_GENERIC_ICON_PLUGIN);
TYPE_PLUGIN was removed awhile ago so this won't work.

Comment 16

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Attachment: patch v2

Comment 17

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #14)
> That'll do! The only nit I have is that some plugins are for non-media file
> formats, but I think doing much more than this would be overkill. Maybe add
> something to represent interactive/gaming (for flash, java, etc)?

I think the motion picture / sound metaphor fits gaming & co. actually quite well. I'd rather add something that represents text documents (PDF, MS Office), but at the same time I see the risk to make the icon too crowded. It should be recognizable at 16x16, but even at 32x32 three objects could be too much :(

Comment 18

[John Drinkwater (:beta)]

(In reply to comment #9)
> Created an attachment (id=281671) [details]
> mozilla/toolkit/themes/winstripe/mozapps/extensions/viewButtons.png

Maybe the plugin icon could use a mini jigsaw piece instead of the muscial note? Firefox users already understand the concept of jigsaw = extension.
As for something to represent a plugin, is using a box plus YouTube’s ‘play’ icon obvious enough to scream ‘plugin’?

A related comment: isn’t a globe icon focusing on the Americas a l10n problem too? ;)

Comment 19

[Jonathan Haas]

> Maybe the plugin icon could use a mini jigsaw piece instead of the muscial
> note? Firefox users already understand the concept of jigsaw = extension.

But a plugin is not a real extension...

Unsing a play icon for audio and video is a nice idea. But I think there should something to represent embedded pdf, doc etc.

> A related comment: isn’t a globe icon focusing on the Americas a l10n problem
> too? ;)

In my opinion, yes, although it does not hurt much. I personally would prefer a generic deer park globe instead of it, as in the option window.

Comment 20

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #19)
> > A related comment: isn’t a globe icon focusing on the Americas a l10n problem
> > too? ;)
> 
> In my opinion, yes, although it does not hurt much. I personally would prefer a
> generic deer park globe instead of it, as in the option window.

bug 354642

Comment 21

[John Drinkwater (:beta)]

(In reply to comment #19)
> > Maybe the plugin icon could use a mini jigsaw piece instead of the muscial
> > note? Firefox users already understand the concept of jigsaw = extension.
> 
> But a plugin is not a real extension...

It isn’t, but the concept (“adding something to the browser”) kinda is, at least imho.

Finding something generic is a pita; I would look at: a cardboard box with a small jigsaw piece or a Lego brick, or a few Tetris pieces.

> Using a play icon for audio and video is a nice idea. But I think there should
> something to represent embedded pdf, doc etc.

To represent pdf|doc|text, you have have things like a paper icon with doodles on. Doesn’t mean anything for media, Java, etc though.

How about something that emulates the idea of a web-page For example, Tango’s x-office-document, (but would be rotated to landscape):
 http://jimmac.musichall.cz/wipicons/Tango/48x48/x-office-document.png

(In reply to comment #20)
> > A related comment: isn’t a globe icon focusing on the Americas a l10n
> > problem too? ;)
> 
> bug 354642

Thanks

Comment 22

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to comment #21)
> (In reply to comment #19)
> > > Maybe the plugin icon could use a mini jigsaw piece instead of the muscial
> > > note? Firefox users already understand the concept of jigsaw = extension.
> > 
> > But a plugin is not a real extension...
> 
> It isn’t, but the concept (“adding something to the browser”) kinda is,
> at least imho.

I don't think we should focus on that metaphor, as extensions are already described this way.

> Finding something generic is a pita; I would look at: a cardboard box with a
> small jigsaw piece or a Lego brick, or a few Tetris pieces.

My goal here is to get some generic plugin icon ASAP into the tree. It should be used consistently on the "missing plugin" UI and it should be an improvement over the current icon, so that we could possibly ship it, in case we don't find something that's even better.
Now, unless you have a fleshed out icon handy, I'm afraid that unfocused discussions will only slow things down. I suggest you mull over your ideas (sketch something if you can!) and file a follow-up bug. If there's a nice, workable proposal and if I'm not too busy, I can help to create the final icon.

Comment 23

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

moving out bugs that don't need to block b1

Comment 24

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Robert, is something wrong with the patch?

Comment 25

[Robert Strong (they/them - no direct email)]

I haven't looked at the new patch yet... I've had a couple of P1's to finish up and dental surgery. I should be able to review it Tuesday.

Comment 26

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

Attachment: I'm so, so sorry.

Found online, and could not resist attaching to this bug. :-)

Comment 27

[Marcia Knous [:marcia]]

verified fixed using Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.9a9pre) Gecko/2007100304 Minefield/3.0a9pre.

Comment 28

[miksago]

Why not an icon similar to tango's network one (i think that's what it's called). But basically just a power cord with a plug on it, having the concept of a plug that goes into something.

Comment 29

[Ben Frisch]

Attachment: Quick drawing of my icon idea.

So here is my idea for an icon for plugins.  I consider plugins tools that help media display on a page.  Perhaps a hammerhead with media on it could be a good analogy.

Comment 30

[Jonathan Haas]

(In reply to comment #29)
> Created an attachment (id=287351) [details]
> Quick drawing of my icon idea.

If you would resize this to 32x32px you will not be able to recognize anything on that hammerhead.

I just want to note, that I think it would be a good idea to make the icon as colorful als possible (without looking ugly), becaue plugins often feature colorful Video, Games, Animations and so on. The extensions and themes icons are currently very colorful, too, so plugins should not look too plain in the Add-Ons-Manager.

The current icon looks good, but i would suggest to add something additional, maybe a picture or a letter. You could also try to fill this video strip with images.