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Submission details

46 +61/-15 votes

Create %full (no. of files) trash icons.

Submitted by hoopla_punta on November 18, 2008 to Aesthetics

I am tired of seeing a full trash icon all the time. Its kinda negative and as a perfectionist, I like to keep it "clean".

Why not have different trash icons, that show about how many files you have in it? I believe common folk can differentiate between empty and occupied?

HIgher Levels will see a fuller icon
0 Files = Empty
1 to 20 files = Level 1
21 to 50 files = Level 2
51 to 80 files = Level 3
81 to 110 files = Level 4 (Half full)
111 to 140 files = Level 5
141 to 160 files = Level 6
161 to 180 files = Level 7
181 to 200 files and beyond = Level 8 (fullest)

I have a feeling that people will start competing to see the fastest person to get a full trash can...

Low

Low

Not fixed

Discussion (18 comments)

Ensign Joe wrote on November 18, 2008, 5:07pm

Microsoft actually planned to make the recycle bin fill up visually as you drop files in there. But - like many many many many good features from Longhorn - this was dropped though.

.Chris wrote on November 18, 2008, 11:13pm

Yep. That was one feature I liked. they should bring it back.....

JonathanJ wrote on November 18, 2008, 11:51pm

Sounds like a waste of time. Instead of making six new Recycle Bin icons, I'd rather they make six new icons for objects with legacy representation.

Edit:
Moreover, eight levels sounds like it would be too many icons that do little to differentiate themselves. I'm willing to bet most people don't use icons over 64x64 so four-to-five levels would probably be sufficient.

.Chris wrote on November 19, 2008, 1:04am

Well john there are a lot of features in windows that seem like "a waste of time" one of them in windows live is the dumb me me go go pets

longzheng wrote on November 19, 2008, 2:02am

I have the same guilt, I clean the recycle bin often because it always looks full.

JonathanJ wrote on November 19, 2008, 3:39am

How does this help anyone though, Chris? I can't think of a single scenario where this might be beneficial to me, if I notice there are undeleted files in my Recycle Bin I empty it immediately. And if there are features in Windows that seem like a waste of time, does it makes sense to add more just because? If they wasted 10 hours of development time, why not waste ten more? I think that's the wrong approach.

Question for Long and Hoopla:
Will you manage the Recycle Bin more/less with this change? Do you see yourself ignoring the bin because you notice it only has two or three items in it? If you compulsively empty the bin when you see it (like I do), I doubt it.

A suggestion for the suggestion:
You were right on when you suggested percents. I could fill my bin to capacity with a single file, if I wanted to. Using percents rather than items allows people to more easily notice their bin is full and about to begin to flush items to stay within its limitations.

.Chris wrote on November 19, 2008, 4:55am

john, its all about user prefence and options. not what you want.

this will in fact tell the user how full their recyale bin is..

JonathanJ wrote on November 19, 2008, 7:58am

This site is about submitting and reviewing UI quirks, I'm simply handing out an opinion on this submission. Personally, I just think this isn't worth Microsoft's time. This, in my mind, borders on a waste of time. How does the user knowing how many (1~200) files help them? That's what I want to know. Like I said, I can't think of a single scenario where it would help me or I would find it useful. I'm just repeating myself though...

Options are great but I'm not willing to give everyone who wants an "option" a pass, especially with some of the things people want here. Simply +1'ing everything would make this site very boring, too.

hoopla_punta wrote on November 19, 2008, 10:35am

well i certainly don't want to have my trash can full just because of one ONE file!!

eikonoklastes2 wrote on November 20, 2008, 11:56pm

This is not a good suggestion.

The Recycle Bin doesn't fill up based on the number of files. It fills up based on the file sizes - hence the allocation based on disk space and not a maximum number of files that you can put in there.

A single, massive 8GB video file in the bin should not show the same level as a piddly 2kb text file.

If anything, fill it up based on how many bits are sitting in the bin.

(Just noticed that JonathanJ has already posted this in his comment above, but since I missed it, maybe others will as well.)

.Chris wrote on November 21, 2008, 12:51am

still its 2008, time for a change. think outside the box kids. do be so closed minded

nitrous9200 wrote on November 24, 2008, 2:32am

A percent full indicator (amount of trash) makes sense but it's not really necessary and can't be seen easily unless you have extra large icons enabled.

.Chris wrote on November 24, 2008, 3:03am

not quite, there can be a badge over the icon, much like the security shield, displaying the %.. Apple does this well on the iphone/ipod touch, microsoft can if they do it right

eikonoklastes2 wrote on November 24, 2008, 9:39am

@.Chris
Change for the sake of change is hardly a wise idea.

hoopla_punta summed up his lack of grasp of this topic with this statement: "well i certainly don't want to have my trash can full just because of one ONE file!!"

If the file is large enough, it will fill up the Bin.

Thinking about the future doesn't involve pasting a percentage indicator on the Bin. That's not out of the box. That's delicious eye-candy at best and a stupid annoyance at worst.

I'd rather have Microsoft focus more on friendly, efficient data recovery even after emptying the Recycle Bin.

Moving further out of the box, how about intelligent detection of important files that you might be deleting by accident? Things like "Your favorite album is among the selected files! Are you sure you want to delete it?" Or - "This photo is being used as a source image in your Illustrator project file. Do you really want to delete it?"

If Microsoft's out-of-the-box-thinking involves making the Recycle Bin fill up in a nicer way, I'd be worried.

.Chris wrote on November 25, 2008, 12:37am

its 2008, time for them to get with the times. some of you old timers may not like it, if you dont why you here? go and create your own windows 3.1 taskforce

eikonoklastes2 wrote on November 25, 2008, 9:29am

Come on now, don't be like that. Why resort to name-calling instead of addressing what seems to be a valid argument? I thought we were all here for the same purpose.

litemininyuszika wrote on January 21, 2009, 12:54pm

JonathanJ:
Not, it's not for only UI (user interface) quirks, it's for UX (user experience) quirks!

.Chris wrote on January 21, 2009, 3:51pm

I think we found the guy who demoted every idea...

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