Always show icon thumbnail in hover menu

[pne]

Title:
Always show icon thumbnail in hover menu

Area:
UI

Summary:
Hover menus should, for consistency, always include the thumbnail of the user's default icon (and it should be a link to the user's icon page).

Description:
Dreamwidth uses a hover menu in at least two situations: when hovering the pointer over the "userhead" of a <user name="example"> tag, and when hovering the pointer over a user's icon. This hover menu includes things such as whether you subscribe to or give access to them, links to their profile, etc.

It also includes a reduced-size version/thumbnail of the user's icon -- *except* when the hover is over the user's default icon.

Specifically, the thumbnail will always appear when hovering over the userhead, and it will always appear when a specific icon was chosen by keyword (presumably even if that specifically-chosen icon also happens to be the current default). But it will be absent if hovering over a default icon.

This means that there was no consistent way to get to the user's "all icons" page, which is IMO a useful thing to be able to do -- you couldn't count on this link being present in every hover.

Now (http://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/19003.html) icons themselves link to the "all icons" page, but I still think it would be good, for consistency, for the link to be present in all hover menus, including over icons, including over the default icon.

I suspect that this will be small change, and that it will likely involve *removing* code which specifically checks for the case of the default icon, rather than writing new code.

I don't envision any drawbacks other than (a) a slight increase in CPU and bandwidth for showing thumbnails where there were previously none and possibly (b) annoyance among users who relied on the presence or absence of a thumbnail in the hover to determine whether a given icon was a user's default.

An alternative, equally consistent but (to me) less optimal way would be to have the thumbnail present in all userhead hovers but no icon hovers -- presuming the thumbnail serves the main purpose of linking to the "all icons" page, which icons now have themselves. But then it couldn't fulfill the additional purpose of identifying a user (who might have many different icons) visually through their default icon.

Poll #2573 Always show icon thumbnail in hover menu

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 38

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This suggestion:

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Should be implemented as-is.
18 (47.4%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
2 (5.3%)

(I have no opinion)
17 (44.7%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (2.6%)