Plugin icon confuses new users
| Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu |
Confirmed
|
Wishlist
|
Unassigned | ||
Bug Description
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
My sister (14 years old) used Xubuntu yesterday and did not understand the plugin system.
Firefox uses the plugin icon (see attachment 1) to indicate a missing plugin (in this case the Flash player). From there on she associated this green icon with something like 'this software is broken and needs fixing', because she doesn't even know what Flash is and assumed that it would Just Work(tm).
Although installing the flash player was very easy for her to do (kudos for that Ubuntu!), she now associates this icon with this specific kind of situations.
So when she opened Pidgin Internet Messenger and saw the same icon in the menu, she automatically assumed that Pidgin was also incomplete and she asked me if I could install the right version. But.. Pidgin uses the icon to indicate that it is possible to extend the program, not to indicate that something 'essential' is missing.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION
A different icon for both (one for 'missing plugin to perform this action' and one for 'it is possible to extend with plugins') would seem to solve this interface problem.
Thanks in advance.
| Thijs N (thijsn) wrote | #1 |
| Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek) wrote | #2 |
Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Based on the information you gave in this report, the developers should be able to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here. Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!