title: Windows icon overlays - alternatives, improvements and thoughts?
body: <p>As <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/users/366904/cody-gray">Cody Gray</a> mentioned when answering my other question <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4411336/shelliconoverlayidentifiers-why-so-few">here</a>, Raymond Chen talks about how icon overlays are a poor choice <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/12/09/9934348.aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a> (note that the article <strong>is</strong> a year old).</p>
  
  <p>The substantive argument against overlays is that only one can be shown at a time... so if two apply, which one wins? The specious argument is that there can only be 15 - which in my opinion is a design choice by Microsoft, not an argument against their efficacy.</p>
  
  <p>With the changing topology of file:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>location</li>
  <li>management</li>
  <li>ownership</li>
  <li>synchronization</li>
  <li>replication</li>
  <li>?????</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I believe Files and folders need the equivalent of presence indicators to instantly identify their status.</p>
  
  <p>What is an alternative to icon overlays that presents the same instant visual queue on the status of a file/folder? Maybe there needs to be a new model for icons?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Edit:</strong> </p>
  
  <p><code>2010-12-14</code>
  The more I've thought about this, the more I feel that the idea that there can only be ONE overlay and that there's no way to make overlays work together is ridiculous.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Unless there's a technical reason you cannot have more than one overlay?</strong></p>
  
  <p><em>Consider (off the top of my head):</em></p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>You could segment the icon into 4 quadrants (upper left, upper right, etc) - this would allow for 4 overlays per icon. No inter-overlay adaptation required.</li>
  <li>You could stack overlays, and ONLY use priority to determine position (z-order anybody?). Allow the user access to User-space priorities, so the USER (you know, the person who the software is supposed to serve?) can choose which overlays matter. Rather than reserving a spot for an overlay, system overlays have the highest priority.</li>
  </ul>