Notification area (was: Re: ANNOUNCE: Wallpaper Tray barry)

[Ole Laursen <olau hardworking dk>]

Ben Jansens <xor orodu net> writes:

[...]

> The notification area can also be used for "panel-applet"-like programs,
> which are cross-desktop compliant. I have to run gnome-panel to run a
> gnome-panel applet, but I don't to run a system tray/notification area
> application.

Argh, please, please don't abuse the notification area for this! The
notification area is for a specific purpose (which noone really seems
to agree on), not for all applets.


The whole debate around the notification area has made me wonder
whether we don't need two different areas. There seems to be (at
least) three different types of things people want to put on the
panel:

  1. "Static" applets, i.e. applets that you add yourself explicitly with
     the "Add to panel" menu

  2. Transient applets that show up

     - because you turned on hardware with some kind of status (e.g.
       modem lights)

     - because you started printing a document and want access to the
       queue to cancel the job

     - because you started a program that benefits from cooperating
       with an applet (e.g. for instant messaging you want to able to
       access the client instantly from all workspaces (and get
       notification about incoming messages, people leaving, etc.))

  3. Pure notification messages, with some kind of history, speech
     bubbles (whatever they do), blinking icons, etc.


It seems to me that we should have a notification applet with a
limited API for no. 3 and a flexible (pardon the pun) transient area
applet for no. 2.

Then we can always later fight about what to put in the transient area
and what to place directly on a panel, but at least we don't have the
problem of the notification muddiness. Or perhaps the transient area
could be modified to also support notification in a standardized
manner. I don't know. But the current notification area situation is a
mess.

-- 
Ole Laursen
http://www.cs.auc.dk/~olau/
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