Re: Planning for GNOME 3.0

[Luca Ferretti <elle uca libero it>]

2009/4/19 Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi gmail com>:
> On Sun, 2009-04-19 at 23:26 +0200, Luca Ferretti wrote:
>
>> Fortunately Ubuntu is yet experimenting on alternate, ephimeral notifications ;)
>
> that has nothing to do with applets, gadgets/widgets/desktlets/whatever
> and resident application.

I've a different point of view.

If we want to redesign the GNOME "shell", if we want to keep
applets/gadgets/widgets/desktlets/whatever (or if we have to keep for
users' sake[0]), we have to draw a line between *notifications* and
*gadgets*.

We have to choose if is better to maintain something abused as current
notification area or, instead, to switch to a "status area"[1]
supported by a different notification system. We were yet talking
about a different approach to notifications[2], the Ubuntu experiment
could be an interesting playground to investigate where and how we can
move shell components.

[0] and for vendors' sake too. A recent example: Dell is adding a
stupid applet on Mini 9, a simple "help" icon to pop-up a menu, each
menu entry pointing to a different section of Ubuntu guide (Internet,
Music, Updates, Printers..). For me this is the most unuseful applet,
but I started to use GNOME in 1.x times; instead it could be really
useful for a new user as well as for Dell support (less request "how
can I do .. ?"). GNOME is not a final product, it's a platform for
vendors
[1] Currently, on my screen, in notification area there are battery
_status_ indicator, network _status_ indicator and bluetooth icon...
not so much notifications ;)
[2] http://live.gnome.org/AlternativeNotificationsUI