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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Proposal: kde guide systray update
From:       "Aaron J. Seigo" <aseigo () olympusproject ! org>
Date:       2003-02-04 17:24:22
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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
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