76575 - Context menus should have icons to be more ICQ-like

Status: VERIFIED INVALID

(SeaMonkey :: General, enhancement)

Description

[robert]

context menus are boring, but remember the suits have kids, and when their kids
go gaga over some really neat icons in the mozilla context menu's, they will be
happy, and so will their parents be happy.. hence, you may get a pay raise, who
knows, wierd shit happens in life.

lets add some pizazz and spunk to the context menu's so they will be more
icq-like, icq is hugely popular, i'm not sure if this popularity can be
attributed to their overwhelming using of mini-icons, but maybe mozilla can
benefit from this ui enhancement.. 

I've made some mockup screenshots of what it could possibly look like..

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

copying the "feature" that gave ICQ its confusing and headache-inducing menus?
er....

ICQ is popular because people want to talk to each other and for no other reason.

confirming rfe, though I think we should not do this.

Comment 2

[James Paige]

*laugh* cute :)

no offense, but is this bug serious? Im bad at recognizing sarcasm sometimes,
but you seem sarcastic about it

I would hope that the capabilities to do a thing like this are already present
in the theme system. That would seem to be the right place for this variety of
cute-but-pointless graphical GUI bloat

And just on a matter of style, I think that the smiley and frowny faces should
look like kittens. ^0.0^ 

Comment 3

[:deanis74]

I seem to remember the fuzzy gummy or whatever theme from Alphanumerica having 
icons in the menus.  If they can do it, it would seem that this is up to the 
theme authors.  Recommend marking this invalid, since I don't think there's 
anything stopping someone from doing this.

Comment 4

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Wow, you mean I'm allowed to mark enhancements as invalid? Ok, then. Invalid it 
is.

Uh, generally, ICQ isn't a good thing to copy UI ideas off. Really it isn't. In 
fact, I haven't seen an app with a worse UI in quite some time. In fact, I 
wonder if it's being left with a bad UI deliberately so that its users will 
switch to AIM ... but I digress.

Context menus are designed for extremely quick use -- mouse down, find an item, 
mouse up, and you're done. So items should contain the command text, and 
nothing else; adding command icons would slow down the user's recognition of 
the commands. You're not even supposed to advertise *keyboard shortcuts* in a 
context menu ... so icons in the context menu would be beyond the pale.

Comment 5

[Zach Lipton [:zach]]

rubber stamp verif it is then

Comment 6

[timeless]

fwiw, w2k context menus for windows include colorless icons.  MS Visual Studio 
includes them and IIRC MS Office does too (these apps are all brethren), but 
again, enough people don't like those interfaces :)

mpt is right, suggesting any feature from ICQ is a good way to guarantee your 
feature request is laughed at.  Live and learn.