Hi there,

Breeze icons recently introduced new icons for "emblem-unmounted" and "emblem-mounted" which looked like squares in red and blue, after I complained about them, they're now a red cross and green tick. This makes them look like "your device is broken" if used as an overlay.

To make life easier for our awesome icon people I now want to clarify the requirements and usecases we have and for which we need what kind of icon.

States
These are usually used as an overlay to the icon (for instance in the bottom left corner of an icon)

emblem-mounted: Denotes that a device is currently mounted and its files can be accessed.
This icon has errorneously been used as a "please mount me" (because it looked like a button with a cable on it) icon due to the lack of a proper action icon leading to inconsistencies now with Breeze.

emblem-unmounted: Denotes that the device is currently not mounted but connected and can be mounted if so desired.

Actions
These are actions the user can explicitly trigger to change the state of the device, usually in context menus of a file manager or buttons in a device list.
Unfortunately Oxygen lacks proper device action icons and the freedesktop icon specification isn't particularly specific about them either.

media-eject: This action enables the user to eject a disk having the CD drive open. Used by a media player being consistent with pause/play/forward/etc buttons. Also currently used by anyone else for ejecting media as required by the specification ("The icon for the eject action of a media player or file manager.") which is kinda unfortunate since the media-eject icon is usually fits with the media controls, not the environment of a file or device manager.

media-unmount: There currently is no icon like this in the specs or Oxygen. This action enables the user to unmount the device, saving all its changes to the disk, without ejecting or turning off the device, so it can be mounted using the file browser again.

media-teardown: There currently is no icon like this in the specs or Oxygen. This action enables the user to turn off the device, stopping an external harddrive from spinning. The device can only be mounted again when it is unplugged and plugged in again.

media-mount: There currently is no icon like this in the specs or Oxygen. This action enables the user to mount a device again after it has been unmounted but not powered off or ejected.

There could perhaps even be confirmation icons for notifications such as "media-ejected" and "media-eject-failed" or similar, however those could also use the regular icons for failed/success or the device icon. Also, these icons are needed for the plasma theme as well (device notifier).

The above list is just to give you an impression on what kind of icons we need for what kind of action. Of course this is quite technical and an implementation should not give the user too much to worry about. For instance:
- when a DVD is in its drive, there should just be an "Eject" action which ejects the disc
- an external hard drive will be mounted automatically when it is accessed by the user
- unmounting an external hard drive will keep it on (but safe to pull the plug) and allow the user to power it off or mount it again

Cheers,
Kai Uwe

kbroulik wrote: States
These are usually used as an overlay to the icon (for instance in the bottom left corner of an icon)

emblem-mounted: Denotes that a device is currently mounted and its files can be accessed.
This icon has errorneously been used as a "please mount me" (because it looked like a button with a cable on it) icon due to the lack of a proper action icon leading to inconsistencies now with Breeze.

emblem-unmounted: Denotes that the device is currently not mounted but connected and can be mounted if so desired.

But what explicitly means to mount a device, I only know it means that I can access my storage device and Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_(computing)) only seems to confirm my vague notion (well that's what you already said).

With that then, the "ok" mark means that the device is available or ready and the "x" unavailable or unready, rather than "working or not working/broken". And if they're going to be used as overlays, they should be used where they make sense and not anywhere else, granted I've only seen them in Dolphin (where they're incredibly small and barely visible) and the notification area when a USB is plugged in (where they make sense and actually are visible).

If other software used the emblem icon in a different context then that is wrong usage of it and that action needs a new icon.

On another note, there isn't a symbol that means to mount a filesystem and that makes it even harder to find something fitting. Play and Stop/Eject could be used, but they'd be unfamiliar to those that are knowledgeable of the concept of mount yet they'd make sense since drives are still a form of media.

kbroulik wrote:
Actions
These are actions the user can explicitly trigger to change the state of the device, usually in context menus of a file manager or buttons in a device list.
Unfortunately Oxygen lacks proper device action icons and the freedesktop icon specification isn't particularly specific about them either.

media-eject: This action enables the user to eject a disk having the CD drive open. Used by a media player being consistent with pause/play/forward/etc buttons. Also currently used by anyone else for ejecting media as required by the specification ("The icon for the eject action of a media player or file manager.") which is kinda unfortunate since the media-eject icon is usually fits with the media controls, not the environment of a file or device manager.

media-unmount: There currently is no icon like this in the specs or Oxygen. This action enables the user to unmount the device, saving all its changes to the disk, without ejecting or turning off the device, so it can be mounted using the file browser again.

media-teardown: There currently is no icon like this in the specs or Oxygen. This action enables the user to turn off the device, stopping an external harddrive from spinning. The device can only be mounted again when it is unplugged and plugged in again.

media-mount: There currently is no icon like this in the specs or Oxygen. This action enables the user to mount a device again after it has been unmounted but not powered off or ejected.

There could perhaps even be confirmation icons for notifications such as "media-ejected" and "media-eject-failed" or similar, however those could also use the regular icons for failed/success or the device icon. Also, these icons are needed for the plasma theme as well (device notifier).

The above list is just to give you an impression on what kind of icons we need for what kind of action. Of course this is quite technical and an implementation should not give the user too much to worry about. For instance:
- when a DVD is in its drive, there should just be an "Eject" action which ejects the disc
- an external hard drive will be mounted automatically when it is accessed by the user
- unmounting an external hard drive will keep it on (but safe to pull the plug) and allow the user to power it off or mount it again

Cheers,
Kai Uwe

media-eject is already there.

media-unmount sounds like stop.

media-teardown sounds like power off, there is a bolt-like icon in Breeze.

media-mount sounds like play.

Now, well they're actions not emblems so they'd be 22 px, monochromatic icons as the other action icons are.