On 23 April 2010 16:05, Aurélien Naldi <aurelien.na...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 4:02 PM, Davyd McColl <dav...@gmail.com> wrote: >> For what it's worth, I'd like to put in 2 (perhaps long-winded) cents here. >> >> The short story and suggestions: >> I think that culling the Notification Area could be problematic > > I also think that it may be a bit early to remove it completely. > While I'm not involved in this, I'll try to share what I like about > the new system. >
Well. I guess I'm from the opposite "camp" =) I can't wait to shut down all applets & notification area. I love envelope turning green when my nick is mentioned in "gnome-xchat" and I love how my power button turns red after unattended upgrade & requirement to reboot to get new kernel. (when you click red power button you see red circular icon next to where "Restart" was, which gets renamed to "Restart Required...") > >> 2) Whilst I like the floating click-through notification concept, it doesn't >> help for being able to tell, after being away from the desktop, when, for >> example, I've missed an IM. I really hope no-one expects that the user >> should have to scan all open applications for updates in lieu of a >> "systray". Since I don't use empathy (finding it clunky, and, well, just >> "not pidgin" enough for me and my set ways), I don't know if the user status >> icon can show that there have been IMs since the user stepped away from her >> desk -- but I'm assuming not? The pidgin tray icon lets me know straight >> away. > > I don't use pidgin but if I recall properly, pidgin supports the new > "message indicator", introduced in karmic. It provides a single icon > to show unread messages for each messaging application (empathy, > evolution, pidgin, gwibber, probably others, esp. kopete). > & gnome-xchat >> 3) I've had a look at the spec at >> http://design.canonical.com/2010/04/notification-area/ for the "menu" >> concept, and I have to ask: what, apart from the fact that moving the mouse >> will open another app's menu (which may actually confuse new users who don't >> expect that) is the difference between this concept and the current >> notification area with clickable icons? It doesn't seem all that abstracted >> to me... > > IMHO, the fact that we can't switch from one menu to another in the > panel when they belong to different applets make these menus feel > weird (compared to the ones found in a single application). I remember > comments about this from the gnome-panel maintener years ago saying > that a new design would allow to fix this problem. The application > indicators solves this but only partially as it only allows to switch > between the menus of applications using this system. I would really > love something working for the whole panel as we can see on macosx. My > main critics here is that we now have single applets or notification > icons (which don't allow switching at all) as well as several groups > of menu inside which we can switch: the application/places/system main > menu, the application indicators and the me/session menu. > At least merging the message-indicator and application-indicator menus > would much improve the situation IMHO (but would also lead to less > flexibility WRT positioning them..). > Another big difference between notification area is that the > application does _NOT_ paint its menu, it only provides icons, text > and callbacks for the available actions. Painting, positioning, > showing the menu.. is up to the applet, which provides a much better > desktop integration (for exemple, a kde application can use it with a > gnome panel and the menu will use gtk, thus not feel alien or depend > on toolkit theming hacks). In fact this is also why it is possible to > switch between the different menus. It also makes it easier to change > the way they are presented or they react to user input without needing > to update each separate application (no more right-click here and > left-click there). It will also make it much easier to build solution > like hiding silent application, even if I would much prefer making > good use of the available space and creative solution like grouping > stuff like the message-indicator does than adding auto-hide featres > which would send a message saying: you can overuse this space, we try > to compensate for it. > For now this system is limited to relatively simple menus but as I > understand it, more advanced features are planned to support more > complex needs like the network-manager applet or the clock applet. > So it is not finished yet, but as a lucid user I must say I like the > first step and look forward to the next one. Even if I'm also > concerned about the risk of removing the notification area too early. > (in reply to this and earlier email) I don't see why Linux can't lead the way in this respect. With appindicator library you will just wait when Canonical or someone else comes up with a library to support Gnome-shell, Windows & Mac. On mac (not sure how they are called correctly) indicator behaviour is similar to that AppIndicator but it is a bit silly =) e.g. you cannot bring up Skype contact list using that you have to click on the Dock =( With respect to people being familiar with the "old-way". Well..... my parents started to use bookmarks & tabs and read pages auto-translated from english thanks to chromium. Previously they said firefox is too complex for them. And based on the whooping last quoter Apple sales and shrinking microsoft profits calls I think we are right on track to fix bug #1 even if we borrow some ideas here and there. With linux i think it's like code or bit rot. Take one talented hacker (Linux), frustrate him (apparently "telneting" on random ports is called "hacking" nowadays) and there you have it - git which just boomed since then. If you don't use git you are "ugly & stupid"[1]. Will it kill hg & bzr? probably no, we are active competitors in this race. But look what it did to svn & their current roadmap =/ I see app-indicator thing in the same light. It doesn't matter whether it's system tray, notification area or Appindicators: silly small icons related to head-less apps & computer healthcheck must look about the same, act about the same way and feel about the same way otherwise that app is "ugly & stupid". ps. Just to finish this rant - I'm a bit annoyed that we switched from "close" last on the left hand side, to "close" first on the left hand side. I was so used to the new intended layout. [1] I think that's what he said in Google TechTalk. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
