What is the full icon bar for in the new Snow 1.4 theme?

Question

This is a screenshot of the footer of the new Snow 1.4 theme:

I can't figure out what all the action icons in the bottom are there for. It would make sense to have only the ones related to a quesiton but they are also in the question. All icons in the bar do not work either, only the ones in the question do. Not to mention they are displayed even in question lists.

So, what is the reason why they are there?

Answer 1

That is icon's information belt. As you can see that there is no text with icon buttons. So it's good in desktop view but for users in mobile view this is what which will help them know which icon is for what.
Nothing on this belt selects because it just displays icons text and nothing else. Maybe in next phase of development of snow theme this belt will be made automatic so that users will be shown only those icons which are related to him but right now it is like this only.
Yup you said right, clicking on them will do nothing as it's just to display icons text.
This kind of thing is not new in Q&A forums CMS, as phpBB, vanilla and some other also use this type of icon information in the footer.

Comments

Sorry but I'm not totally following you. I do understand mobile users do not see tooltips. Bearing this in mind I have the following doubts:

1.a - Do you mean this footer bar is there just for reference for mobile users?
1.b - If that is the case, then why is it displayed in "Desktop mode" and not hidden with media queries?

2.a - Or do you mean this is currently being developed and will soon be functional? According to the code I see no intention of making this functional and I don't really think someone would commit something right in the middle of development.
2.b - Also, if it is going to be functional, then why are the real question buttons being displayed? It wouldn't make much sense to display both.

3 - Can you provide a link with that bar to any of those other forums or QA scripts? I'd really like to see how they are using that.

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Ok, let me try to clear this to you. As you can see in the pic above that a question has been asked there. Now there are just icons to answer that question, comment, hide, close or edit. Well there is probability that new users may get confuse with the icons as there is no text, so this icons bar is placed in footer to let them know, that what the icon do. This bar is for both mobile and desktop users, but as we hover the mouse over icons in the forum then we easily gets to know that what the icon do (in desktop mode), but this is not possible in mobile view, so mostly this bar will be a great help to mobile users.
There is nothing in this icons bar to be functional becuase its just like a normal notice borad. Just read that icons and go on working. Nothing to waist time here. It will only help new users but as they will get used to icons, this bar will be of no use to them.

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Yes, I see. Ok, so you answer #1.a as YES. So the question #1.b is still pending answer: why is it displayed in "Desktop mode" if I can see the tooltips? It is just eating precious space. Also related to pending question #3, I have never seen any other site with this links in "Desktop mode".

I really think the whole bar should be gone in "Desktop mode" but displayed in "Mobile mode".

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Well Gabriel, the development is still not complete. So if you wish to not let is display on desktop view then we'll raise this question in snow development site.
Then lets see what comes up.