[Windows] Shell icon overlays take unwarranted precedence in registry list

[gmta]

Issue split from muted issue #3056:

I asked: "Why does the OC client force itself to the top of the icon list by using two spaces in front of the keys' names?"

@danimo said: "Because that's Best Practise (tm) to take precedence Otherwise, we'd be at the losing end. Microsoft's OneDrive client uses the same "technique", as do many others. Again, there is no good solution."

A technical feasible solution would be to DO NOT use two spaces to take unwarranted precedence above other applications. This is just Bad Behavior™ (for obvious reasons I could go into if you want) and the fact that other applications take precedence does not mean that you should also do this.

Please do the right thing and just add keys with their normal names. Now, the installation of OC desktop client breaks other applications like Microsoft OneDrive or TortoiseGit.

You could show a warning during installation if you detect that your icons are not on the top of the food chain, offering a simple button to reintroduce those two spaces.

[VincentvgNn]

For the discussion: Dropbox uses 8 key names with apostrophes to get the best ranking ("DropboxExt1" until "DropboxExt8") and OneDrive uses 3 keys with one proceeding space in the names. The best thing that ownCloud could do is reducing the number of overlay icons to 3 optional icons only showing the sync state, the similar states as at OneDrive (ErrorConflict, SyncInProgress, InSync). Maybe even using the icons from OneDrive when they are installed and if that's technically possible? If the sync state cannot be shown by the overlay icons, because it needs to be deselected, a collective sync state icon in the tray icon remains. For showing the sharing, the standard folder icons could be modified by creating desktop.ini files in the same way as Google Drive shows the sharing. All the optional folder icons can then be stored under ownCloud in the Program Files folder. One folder for the actual icons and one folder for all other nice icons where the user can choose from or even modify.

Does anyone know whether the limitation on the number of overlay icons will be solved in Windows 10?

[tibogens]

This is a very irritating issue, especially for users of Tortoise* clients. Each time ownCloud updates, I have to manually remove the entries from the registry to get my Tortoise overlays back. And, as a developer, I really, really value them more than ownCloud's.

Most of the arguments in the related discussion(s) are plain and simply fallacious. To re-state what @GMTA said above:

• the fact that other clients (be them cloud clients, open source or not, ...) do use tricks to rise at the top of the list is irrelevant. See the broken window theory (others are misbehaving, therefore I must misbehave too)
• the fact that the built-in limitation is ridiculously low (everyone agrees on that) is not an excuse for claiming exclusive ownership on this precious resource (there's not enough oil for everybody, therefore I take it all to make sure I have enough)

Prefixing the entries with numbers help sorting them in the list, so that users can choose where they want the sacrifice to begin (e.g. with TortoiseSVN/Git, you obviously want the "file is up-to-date" and "file modified" statuses, while you can easily sacrifice the "unversioned file"). But ... this is quite orthogonal to the problem at hand.

Currently, ownCloud - and many others - behave just like these crapware toolbars that override the default search provider, or these stupid applications that always want to be the default to open certain file types. While we expect bad guys to produce bad software, the OSS community has to be ethically superior.

And it's quite easy, both on the technical and philosophical points.

Technically, we can, right now:

• remove the overlay feature - the syncing is done automatically so this feature is a "nice to have", but not a requirement for full functionality.
• ASK THE USER during the installation. Checked by default for new installations. Using the previous value for updates.

And we might be able (in a close future) to re-use Tortoise icons if they are present. TortoiseGit and TortoiseSVN already do that. Why not ownCloud?

On the philosophical side, there is no shame in not being part of this "race to the top of the shell overlays list". Really, prefixing the keys by spaces to make them at the top is an incredibly stupid game - somehow, the developer (not the user) chooses to rate his own application by the number of spaces it has. No spaces? Puh, irrelevant app. One space? Good enough. Two spaces? Wow! It has to be a great app, because it's even above Initrod's Frobnicator.

Oh, and I'd be glad to help.

[jondo]

:+1:

[sagamusix]

Fully agree with @tibogens. The OwnCloud overlays are pretty much unusable for me as a Tortoise* user.

[realslacker]

I would second that OwnCloud should re-use an existing clients icons if one is already installed... be it Tortoise, Dropbox, OneDrive or GDrive. It would be nice to see everyone just standardize on one icon anyway and avoid this issue all together.

[VincentvgNn]

@realslacker We are now at Windows 10 and in at least 10 years Microsoft did not introduce more positions for overlay icons. So there it will probably never be solved. And unfortunately the process of taking precedence over others is going on and on: Dropbox uses 3 spaces, Google 2 and OneDrive 1. After each Dropbox update I have to edit the registry to get Microsoft's own OneDrive icons restored! Therefore I like the idea of optionally detecting the presence of usable overlay icons from others and let the user select the set to be used.