Re: The case for cross-desktop dockability and notification-area applet ideology revision.

[Tristan Buckmaster com]

On Sun, 01 Aug 2004 11:38:38 -0400, Curtis Hovey wrote

> What a coincidence.  I just posted a gripe about the
> gaim applet on another thread.  I can see it is 
> running from the window list and window selector, 
> but it never tells me about what is happening to my
> connections and conversations.
> 
> A notification applet must say something about the
> state of function or content, not whether it is 
> running.
> 
> Rhythmbox tells me what is playing and provides some
> quick controls to change it.
> 
> EggCUPS tells me when something is printing.
> 
> RHN notification tell me if updates are available.
> 
> A smart mail applet would show me how many new 
> messages are in my Evo Inbox Outbox.
> 
> A nice sharing applet would tell me how many uploads
> and downloads are occurring
> 
> If you want the window list to take up less space as
> the Gaim applet, then it should be modified to show 
> only icon.  However, all the items listed above are 
> providing app state, _not_ document state.  I would 
> not use an icon only view of the window list, 
> because most of my windows are documents and I need 
> to know there title to quickly select them.  So the 
> value of a notifcation area is for non-windowed 
> apps, or apps that do not need window focus to work.

By mixing icons only and icons with titles the task
list becomes inconsistant and confusing.  If you wanted
to save space and you could use what I was dicussing in
the other thread in the following way: have both panel
applets next to each other in a thin panel.  The task
list at the moment shows icons for each window and the
title of each window.  My solution would only show the
icons of each unique application and the titles of the
windows of the application that the window in focus
belongs to so it would take up less space.  You can
still quickly select your windows by title and your
applications that shouldn't use the notification space
don't need to use it and keep their functionality.  You
could have useful buttons in the panel such as a drop
down hide and a drop down close with the items to have
the effect on all windows of the current application or
all windows except the current window in focus.

So everyone is happy:

Keep notification space clean
Reduce complexity (no need for tabbed applications)
Reduce use of desktop space (what was discussed
previous, no tab toolbar in applications and
applications don't have to be as large as the largest
tab)
Introduce new functionality to the user (tab like
features, close all windows of application, close all
but current........blah)