Notification icons hell (was Re: [gpm] Re: Gnome 2.16 Module Proposal: GNOME Power Manager)

[Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org>]

[I killed most of the mail addresses in the cc line]

Le dimanche 09 avril 2006 �2:08 +0100, Andrew Sobala a �it :
> As a sidenote, I believe the windows slider was invented to leave some 
> room for the task bar when you have 40 icons in your notification area, 
> one for every application installed on the system. The GNOME 
> notification area isn't intended to be (and for the most part, isn't) 
> used in this way, so we don't need a way to hide icons that shouldn't be
> there in the first place.

Just a sidenote about notification icons: right now, I have 5 of them:

 + the alarm of evolution (I kind of agree it should be here, although
   I didn't click on it and it's now sitting there since at least 24
   hours...)

 + the gossip icon. It just sits there, while I have no message. It
   should be an applet.

 + the battery icon of gnome-power-manager. Because I like to know if
   my battery is fully charged or not, etc. Should be an applet. I
   should mention I'm insane since I also have the battstat applet :-)

 + the xchat-gnome notification plugin. The last version has a fix that
   make it only show an icon when there's a message for you. Much saner.

 + the reboot icon of ubuntu. I don't want to click on this, it will
   reboot! (well, it won't: it will just ask me if I want to reboot,
   but I already mentioned I'm insane)

Well, I really should have 6, but I'm not listening music right now
(rhythmbox). And it could be 7, but I'm not connected with ekiga right
now. Or 8 with NetworkManager. And even 9 since I use the keyboard
typing break feature, but the icon disappeared???

The notification area is already starting to be used in the very same
way than it is on Windows. I'm pretty sure I could run some other useful
programs that add icons there.

There are some ways to fix this:

 + HIG HIG HIG

 + make it possible to dynamically add an applet from a program. I'd
   like to add the infrastructure for this during 2.16. Don't know if
   I'll have time, but maybe someone is interested in working on
   this? ;-)

 + try to make the notification area smart and force some icons to hide.
   This will be inherently broken.

Vincent

-- 
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