Change favicon in monitor mode

[irilyth]

It'd be cool if the favicon changed when you were in Monitor mode, so that if you have it in a non-active tab (especially a pinned one in Firefox, where only the icon is visible), the icon of the tab would change (e.g. to a grayscale one) if you didn't have any active games, and then change back to the usual one when you have active games.

[irilyth]

Spawned from #1125, which was mostly about the page title, and this didn't end up making it into the fix for that.

[yawetag]

Instead of grayscale, how about the BM logo without the die when you don't have a turn and add the die when you do? It's essentially the same logo with a small addition when you need to move.

[irilyth]

I think the small addition would be pretty hard to notice at a glance, whereas the grayscale vs normal icon is quite obvious.

[dwvanstone]

Just some interesting notes on favicons: https://blog.placeit.net/creative-uses-favicons/

I hadn't noticed that Google Calendar has today's date in its favicon.

The odd thing I want to point out is that (with the redirect preferences turned off) even if you have something to do you're still in Monitor Mode, so the favicon change doesn't really reflect "am I in monitor mode or not.

So I wonder if this modified favicon should simply reflect "Is there a game waiting for me" and have nothing to do with monitor mode. I.e., if the monitor mode is off should we update the favicon to a "game waiting for me" symbol?

[irilyth]

I'm not sure about that; the converse case sounds potentially problematic, e.g. if you end up on the overview page, where there are no games waiting for you, and leave yourself there, if the favicon goes gray at that point, it'll never change back again while the tab is in the background, even if one of your games becomes active.

[dwvanstone]

I didn't understand that case - did the user hit monitor, or is the page just static?

[irilyth]

No monitor at all in that example -- I was responding to your "nothing to do with monitor mode" suggestion.

[dwvanstone]

I'm still liking this idea, so let me make my idea clearer and expand it to the whole site.

Let's call the standard favicon "favicon1" and the new favicon "favicon2". I'm suggesting "favicon2" represents that there is a game waiting for you to take an action.

On all page on the website, the favicon is set to:

• favicon1 if the number of games waiting for you is 0
• favicon2 if the number of games waiting for you is > 0

So in your example:

1. I go to the overview page and there are no games waiting for me. Favicon1 shows. Monitor mode is off.
2. Some other user takes a turn.
3. Nothing changes because monitor mode is off and I have not refreshed the page.
4. If I refresh or click on Forum or interact in some way then Favicon2 shows.

Does that make more sense?

[yawetag]

I think the small addition would be pretty hard to notice at a glance, whereas the grayscale vs normal icon is quite obvious.

I disagree. I've attached a copy of my pinned tabs on Firefox.

If the white die were removed and suddenly appeared, I'd find it more noticeable than a grayscale change on something as small as the icon. You'll notice Gmail (the first tab) shows a number with the mail icon; if the mail icon were to change colors instead, I don't think it'd be as obvious.

And, dwvanstone, you can see the Google Calendar date on my tab as well.

[dwvanstone]

I might ask a web designer friend to take a look at this. My hope is that the other favicon has a meaning and be easily visible as a pinned tab. (I wanted to come to consensus on what the meaning is, first.)

In the Gmail example what happens if you have more than 9 messages? More than 99 messages? (My favicon doesn't change for Gmail.)

[yawetag]

Google shows up to 20 messages. Anything more and it shows '20+'.

Andrew Senger
[email protected]

On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 12:36 PM, dwvanstone [email protected]
wrote:

I might ask a web designer friend to take a look at this. My hope is that
the other favicon has a meaning and be easily visible as a pinned tab. (I
wanted to come to consensus on what the meaning is, first.)

In the Gmail example what happens if you have more than 9 messages? More
than 99 messages? (My favicon doesn't change for Gmail.)

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#1842 (comment)
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[irilyth]

Cleaning out some old mail, I had a message from this thread in my inbox to remind me to reply to it. I'd said:

I think the small addition would be pretty hard to notice at a glance, whereas the grayscale vs normal icon is quite obvious.

Andrew replied:

If the white die were removed and suddenly appeared, I'd find it more noticeable than a grayscale change on something as small as the icon. You'll notice Gmail (the first tab) shows a number with the mail icon; if the mail icon were to change colors instead, I don't think it'd be as obvious.

I predict that what's obvious and what isn't will vary from person to person; how about both?