From kde-usability Tue Feb 04 17:24:22 2003 From: "Aaron J. Seigo" Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2003 17:24:22 +0000 To: kde-usability Subject: Re: Proposal: kde guide systray update X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-usability&m=104438055222121 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Tuesday 04 February 2003 03:43, Waldo Bastian wrote: > On Tuesday 04 February 2003 01:26, Aaron J. Seigo wrote: > > [rearranging your paragraphs a little] > > > the mac osX dock does what you suggest regarding button icons calling up > > already running processes and thereby gets rid of the need for a seperate > > system tray. > > It combines starting tasks (start buttons) with resuming/managing tasks > (taskbar). Although that might look like very similar activities on paper, > I think that in practice there is a very real distinction between the two > and that it has pushed it too far by it's suggestion that that distinction > isn't so important. agreed. > > i don't think this is a great way to get messages to the user however > > I don't think the MacOsX panel tries very hard to get messages to the user. =) > > interesting points.. other differences between the systray and the panel > > is that a user has the ability to add or remove buttons from their panel > > at will but the systray is a place set aside for any application to put > > and remove an active icon. > > So instead of considering the system tray a collection of ever present user > interface items, you think a system tray entry should be more a close > reflection of a (dynamic) background process (not so much a unix process) > and as such tied to the lifetime of this background process? yes... and sometimes that happens to be tied to the lifetime of an application. kmail is a good example of this. > Actually, I can't think of any real-life dynamic process that you would > like to have reflected in the system tray that is short lived. Maybe a > score-board that indicates the score for a sports match, but would you want > that to disappear after a match is over? in the case of kscd, i'd either have to have it always running or a seperate app for the icon in my systray to satisfy the "always there" requirement. neither is a desirable result IMO. not to mention that if every app that showed a systray icon had to always have its icon there, that systray would be huge. > I don't think that alone justifies a system tray entry. Why couldn't the > application use a passive popup message for that? "messages" as i used it is was a poor choice in words; "information" is closer to what i meant. take kmail as an example: o the message (You have new email!) is common and happens very often for some of us ;-) a passive popup would be highly annoying. having something sitting on the panel quietly waiting for me is absolutely perfect. o kmail's systray icon offers a means to see which folders have messages in them whenever i care to check. this represents not only complex information that a passive popup is not as good at delivering, but it also allows "user pull" rather than "application push" of information - -- Aaron J. Seigo GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43 "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler" - Albert Einstein -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE+P/dG1rcusafx20MRAr4rAJ4h+0e0TW2wqXd+mv9ATF6YSXau4gCdHKJR e1pdT4tL4Xsu8vXRNnh6jww= =cpqi -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ kde-usability mailing list kde-usability@mail.kde.org http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability