Re: Notification Area and applets

[James Henstridge <james daa com au>]

Sean Middleditch wrote:

> I think this would be great.  Granted, I hate almost all applets and
> plug status docklets every chance I get, but... it's for a good reason. 
> ~,^  notification area makes much much more sense for applets that don't
> really "extend" or interact with the panel directly (i.e., just about
> everything that isn't adding a missing feature).
>
> /me wonders how much hate mail he'll get for making this comment, again
>  
From my understanding, the way to decide whether something should be a 
status docklet or applet is to think about who should be in control.

If you want the control to be a permanent fixture on the panel, with its 
lifecycle controlled by the panel (ie. it starts with the panel, and 
closes with the panel), then an applet is the right choice.  The panel 
clock is an example of this.

If the control is associated with another app, and its functionality 
only makes sense while the app is running, then it should probably be a 
status docklet.  Examples of this would be a new mail notification icon 
for evolution or mozilla, or an icon for an IM program, etc.  These 
controls are created when the application starts, and removed when the 
application exits.  The lifecycle of the application that created the 
status docklet is not related to the panel (in fact, for most uses of 
docklets, the app will run fine if there is no status dock to display 
the docklet).

In gnome-1.4, there were some applications that created applets, and 
this caused lifecycle problems.  For example, xchat had a way to create 
an applet (from memory, it couldbe used to get notification of new 
messages, and use it to open new windows).  If you right clicked on the 
applet and chose the "remove from panel" menu item, it would kill your 
xchat session with it.  If you left xchat open when logging out, the 
panel would try and start the xchat.  This behaviour was clearly not 
what the user would expect: the lifecycle of the applet should have been 
controlled by the application rather than the panel.

At least, this is my understanding of the distinction :)

James.

--
Email: james daa com au              | Linux.conf.au   http://linux.conf.au/
WWW:   http://www.daa.com.au/~james/ | Jan 22-25   Perth, Western Australia.