IDEA: a single "I'm away" feature

["Alain M. Gaudrault" <alain gaudrault net>]

One of my pet peeves lately is the fact that there is an increasing
number of tools which need to be suspended when you step away from your
computer.  Things like ICQ, IRC, and even a locking screen saver need to
each be individually twiddled in order to indicate that you're stepping
away for awhile.  And that gets both annoying, and prone to
absent-mindedness.

I would like to be able to have a button on the panel which triggers a
standard mechanism which other applications can (eventually learn to)
use to set themselves in "away" mode.  Ideally, clicking on this button
would cause ICQ and IRC apps to indicate that I'm away, and my screen
saver kicks in immediately, a la xlock.  Any keyboard or mouse activity
would resume each of these applications.  The "away" mode could also be
triggered by a smart screen saver once it kicks in, should you forget to
press the panel button.

This could even work with one's net connection, kicking you off when you
step away, and re-establishing itself when you return.

The effort to do this should be minimal, given GNOME has its own ORB;
it's mostly a matter of setting a standard which gets adopted by app
developers.

Would this be more suitable to gnome-list as opposed to gnome-gui-list?

-- 
A tantot.

http://www.gaudrault.net/
quality costs *less*