Re: desktop-devel-list digest, Vol 1 #1142 - 11 msgs

[Bill Haneman <bill haneman sun com>]

>         WRT hiding/removing of a status icon there seem to be three
> different possible approaches:
> 
>         1. To not allow hiding/removing of the icon at all.
> 
>         2. To allow the removal of the icon through context-clicking and
>            to have a corresponding setting (show/not show status icon) in
>            the application's preferences.
> 
>         3. To allow the hiding of the icon through context-clicking and to
>            have the possibility of un-hiding icons through the context
>            menu of the notification area.
> 

#2 seems more convenient than #3 for keynav users.

-Bill

> > 	+ When/why should balloon messages be used? What types of
> > 	  information should they contain?
> > 
> > 	+ Balloon messages should always have a timeout. Need to
> > 	  define the timeout length.

Will these behave "just like tooltips" ?  Can they be keyboard
posted/unposted?

>         o By default the icon never blinks but shows a ballon message
>           instead to notify the user.  (Balloon times out after n
>           seconds.)

Timer-based stuff of this sort tends to make trouble for accessibility,
BTW.  As a rule it's not supposed to be done, or one should be able to
turn it off.  Trouble is, this often means that it needs to be redundant
with some other kind of notification, making the whole business of
timer-based stuff less attractive.

> 
>         o If balloon messages are disabled the icon blinks for n seconds
>           instead of showing the balloon message.
> 
>         o If the application has something that it wants to display to the
>           user for longer than n seconds, it should use a special icon
>           instead of blinking.
> 
> Regards,
> Lars
regards,

-Bill