about that pesky icons browser...

[dunvi]

I was poking at bug 4385, which hopes to add an option for scaled down images in the shiny new icon browser. What I found when I was playing around was that when the images are scaled (down to 50% width and height, so a quarter of the original size), the meta text feels very squished, and there's a high chance of your keywords or descriptions stretching things around nuttily. [ETA: that comment was based on an example mid-debug - the working version doesn't stretch around, but things get cut off if you have more than about one keyword and two words of description text.] Furthermore, I personally found that mini pictures with meta wasn't any more useful (in fact slightly less so) than just using the drop down selector in the first place, but I wanted to check with wiser people, (especially people with more than just a few icons, or who may be using the site differently than me).

How do people feel about perhaps leaving the option for meta info with scaled images out entirely? What I mean is that, instead of two toggles, one 3-way toggle with options of half sized images, full sized images, and full sized images with meta info.


As per suggestion, a few images:




These are the two options you already have, for reference.


This is the option I'm trying to add,


And this is the metatext version that I'm considering leaving out (I know the link is wrong - it's because of the cheap quick way I generated the example. If this option is included, there would, of course, be a fourth option, probably divided into two toggles instead of one multi-toggle).


This is a rearranged version of half-sized images with metatext based on some comments I've received.

Comments

[deborah]

Is it doable to lower the font size with scaled down images? It's reasonable to assume that most people who (a) want smaller images and (b) still want text are willing to read similarly scaled text.

[dunvi]

I guess that's one option, but the text is pretty small as it is, enough so that I'm not sure it's the right option. I can't think of any text on the entire site that's that small.

[jeshyr]

Could you post some screen shots so we can see what these look like?

[dunvi]

Probably a good idea... I added some in. :)

[sakurablossom]

I love the half-size option! :)

[random_ooc]

And we'll still always have the option to just have the word list too?

[dunvi]

The word list is still available in the usual drop down menu, just like ever.

[unicorn]

As one of the people who can't deal with the current beta icon browser, the text/image size in the last (half-size) metatext version works really well for me. If you added it, I'm 100% certain that's the version I'd use.

[dunvi]

How would this work for you? I've got it implemented, and I'm planning to submit it, but I just want to know if this is actually going to be liked by anyone... :)

[unicorn]

Oh gosh it's more perfect than I ever imagined a new browse option could be for me. I love it!!

[musyc]

The half-size browse is not an option I'm likely to use ever, but if I did, this implementation would work wonderfully for me. Ability to read the text without having it all chopped up due to size constraints, very nice.

So yes! Someone likes it. XD