Re: I believe we should reconsider our sys-tray removal

[Link Dupont <link sub-pop net>]

I second the request to revisit this. Britt's argument about 
fragmenting the user experience makes a lot of sense. Is there a place 
in the System menu (the top-right corner menu) where these application 
icons + menus could live? The GSConnect extension adds an entry there.

On Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 11:06 AM, Britt Yazel <bwyazel gnome org> wrote:
> Ladies and Gentlemen,
>
> Congrats on an excellent 3.32 release! As the one handling the front 
> facing side of our social media accounts, I can safely say that the 
> users are EXTREMELY happy with the changes, both features and 
> performance, so give yourselves a nice pat on the back :-)
>
> I want to re-poen an old argument now that we have seen the effects 
> of removing the sys-tray/app-indicator tray for well over a year. In 
> short, the users are not happy. I believe our goals of putting 
> pressure on application developers to ditch the antiquated 
> app-indicator model fell mostly on deaf ears, and not having the 
> sys-tray icons is mostly a nuisance for people, and big pain point 
> for many.
>
> Our users (myself included) and our software partners (Ubuntu, 
> System76, Purism) have reverted to using extensions to return this 
> behavior. Some use KStatusNotifier, some use TopIcons/Plus/Redux, and 
> the point I'm making is that we have forced our users to fragment 
> themselves between many solutions, some decent and some fully broken, 
> for what they perceive as base level functionality. An example of 
> this biting us in the arse is that with 3.32 TopIcons is causing the 
> CPU usage to run through the roof, and people are blaming the Shell 
> for the CPU usage, not the extension, leaving our users with a bad 
> taste in their mouths.
>
> So to sum up, most users who I talk to on social media and in person 
> are using many different 3rd party solutions for sys-tray icons, and 
> this fragmented approach is hurting our image, annoying our users, 
> and is fragmenting our user experience to the point of actual 
> detriment. I think we need to re-evaluate a solution for 3.34, and 
> that this should be a focus this cycle. I believe that there is an 
> elegant solution to handling sys-tray icons without sacrificing our 
> core goals, one idea being to incorporate it into the Dash. However, 
> I don't think we should go forward into 3.34+ without a 1st party 
> solutions in place for how to treat sys-tray icons, because (sadly) 
> they're not going anywhere.
>
> Cheers!
>
> -Britt Yazel