Re: Applets-a-go-go!

[Seth Nickell <snickell stanford edu>]

Paste from:
>   http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-2-0-list/2001-October/msg00390.html

"applets[2]:
	* amusements (fish, fifteen, geyes, gol, odometer)
	* multimedia (cd player, mixer, sound monitor, xmms applet)
	* utility (deskguide, printer, tasklist, charpick, gweather,
		   mini-commander, screenshooter, whereami, gdict)
	* network (stock ticker, clockmail)
	* clock"

After talking with jdub and sander, I think this is a good collection
except for clockmail. Looking at clockmail and comparing it with the
individual mailcheck and clock applets...

1) mailcheck knows about more mailbox types than clockmail (can check
pop3, imap, and maildir in addition to mail spool)
2) themes select clock options in clockmail rather than having them
configurable (for example, whether the date is displayed or not, a
legitimate preference). this is like having themes select the window
manager font.
3) I see no particular reason why clock and mailcheck should be combined
any more than, say tasklist and gnome foot or keyboard switcher and
gdict
4) there is almost no screen space advantage to combining the two, at
least not on small-ish panels (which I am guessing most people sensitive
to screen real-estate will use, or just a foobar). having mailcheck and
clock next to eachother on a small panel takes up about the minimuum
space the two functions can reasonably take up (and indeed take up about
as much as the clockmail applet's default theme).
5) I think its unnecessary to have the applet skinnable, and makes it
not fit in well with the rest of the panel

- I think we should use the mailcheck applet instead of clockmail.

- We need a battery charge monitor (pretty important for laptops)

- I would also add modem-lights to the list of applets we should
include. It would even better to have things like modemlights (and
mailcheck and battery charge) in the status dock, but having it as an
applet is better than nothing. 

- It would also be reasonable to add a system monitor applet to the
list. I know a lot of people who have these on their panel. I'm not sure
exactly why, but I don't think its bad to have it. It would be better if
we didn't have 6 of them though, like in GNOME 1.4.

-Seth