From kde-core-devel Mon Feb 14 18:38:59 2005 From: "Gary L. Greene Jr." Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 18:38:59 +0000 To: kde-core-devel Subject: Re: thoughts on the systray Message-Id: <200502141339.02628.greeneg () arklinux ! org> X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-core-devel&m=110840634825222 MIME-Version: 1 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="--nextPart2085530.GJoJVuxVnW" --nextPart2085530.GJoJVuxVnW Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline On Monday 14 February 2005 1:23 pm, Jason Keirstead wrote: > On Monday 14 February 2005 1:33 pm, Aaron J. Seigo wrote: > > it's a complete abuse of the concept of a system tray > > That totally depends on what yor interpertation is of the purpose of the > systray. Like I said above(and below).. I don't think it was ever intended > for notifications. It is highly un-optimized for this task. > > > and is what we have a taskbar for. if the issue is "it takes up too mu= ch > > space to have a taskbar entry" then that can be handled by the taskbar. > > There is a big difference between taking up less space vs. taking up no > space. > > For apps that are running 24/7, people don't want them in the taskbar *at > all*, because the utility of having them there is zero - in these cases, > the process is no longer a task - it is never going to be closed - it is > more like a daemon. > > > positioning is changeable. we're talking about the actual concept at use > > here. > > Not really.. you are arguing that new users don't understand the concept = of > docking.. how many would know how to move the system tray? Heck, even if > you do know how, it is a non-trivial job.. you need to create a kicker > entention, position it on the screen, put it there... it is not like you > can just move it. > > > that's kind of the point. a place for non-urgent, on-demand status > > updates. we don't want kmail to blast a huge notification in the middle > > of your screen by default whenever you have unread mail. > > No, of course not, but... > > > it makes lots of sense to have it in the systray where you can glance > > down at it. > > No it doesn't. If I have to glance at it to even know it happened, it is > not a notification. For it to be a notification it has to at least cacth > the eye - once it has caught the eye, you can choose to look at it to read > it, or ignore it until you are done your task. > > As it stands right now, the tray is in such a position that it doesn't > catch the eye. Thus the only way to use it for notifications is to show a > big passive popup window, or play a sound and animaiton or both. > > If notifications took place in the upper left / right of the screen, as I > suggested, there woudl be a much higher liklihood that you would notice t= he > change, even with no sound or baloon. This is one of the areas I very much disagree with you. With your statement= =20 listed above, you'd proport that the Mac OS Finder is a much easier UI to=20 notice "events". This is totally not true for many of the users I deal with= =20 daily, largely due to the paradigms that they are used to from a PC=20 environment. We all have to realise that close to 90% of the users out ther= e=20 are using MS Windows. Because of this, they tend to pay MORE attention to t= he=20 bottom center and right on the taskbar region than the left, due to current= =20 desktop paradigm. This is why I generally don't call the tray a System=20 Notification tray, but an Event and Tool Tray, since it does more than just= =20 publishing events. =2D-=20 Gary L. Greene, Jr. Sent from uriel 13:29:30 up 21:40, 4 users, load average: 0.36, 0.33, 0.28 =20 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Developer and Project Lead for the Ark Linux Project check out http://www.arklinux.org/ for more info. Also http://www.csis.gvsu.edu/~greeneg/ EMAIL : greeneg@arklinux.com =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D =20 --nextPart2085530.GJoJVuxVnW Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.9.12 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQBCEPBGpYIGqyXDl5wRAqyXAKDY2VDXNuEnP+t+M6n7V/5EtfMJvQCgq4Hw B92Qs+Wosoze819eFABucc4= =Edy0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --nextPart2085530.GJoJVuxVnW--