Re: adding dead space to floating panels

[Dave Bordoley <bordoley msu edu>]

On Sat, 2003-01-18 at 17:26, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> > Many panel applets really should be included in the system notification
> > area, these include
> > 
> > 1. The clock
> > 2. Wireless link monitor
> > 3. Modem lights (really should just be the equivalent of a minimized
> > dial-up connection window imho)
> > 4. Volume control
> > 5. Battery monitorOn Sat, Jan 18, 2003 at 01:02:24PM -0500, Dave Bordoley wrote:
>  
> > 
> > and i'm sure others as well fall into this category. There is precedent
> > for this in both windows and on the mac.
> > 
> > This post on the usability list covers this topic fairly well:
> > http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2002-October/msg00265.html
> >
> 
> I think this is wrong for several of the applets you and Gregory
> mention. My view is that nothing in the notification area should
> really be more than an icon; you click the icon and it should open
> more details on whatever status the icon indicates. If the
> notification is urgent or requires attention, we should do the bubble
> balloon like Windows XP, or maybe just use a dialog. We should also
> have UI to hide certain icons, disable balloons, and smarten up the
> notification area so items can be reordered and their order gets
> remembered.

Well i think it can be easily argued that at least the applets i listed
really show system status and hence are more appropriate for the
notification area.

1. Wireless link: Why should a user have to manually add this to a
panel, if the user has a wireless connection this should automatically
just appear.

2. Modem lights: If a user connects to the internet using a dialer
program it should minimize into the notification area as in windows. Why
should a user need to manually add this to the panel?

3. volume control: If a users system has a sound card, this should be
automatically added to the panel no? However if a user doesn't have a
sound card, it seems odd to have a volume meter on the panel.

4. Battery monitor: If i'm using a laptop, this should automatically
appear on the panel, if not why should i need to be aware of it.


> 
> We should not start moving all the applets to the notification area;
> it's a *notification area* where you get notified of events. Applets
> are pluggable desktop features, such as a window list (or IMO the
> clock and volume controls). Stuff does not belong in the notification
> area if you have to interact with it in any more complex way than
> clicking on it once.  Stuff similarly doesn't belong there if you
> might want two of the item, or might care which panel contained the
> item, or anything like that. Because notification icons will come and
> go on their own.

I guess my view is that the notification area should be used to show
aspects of system status (similar to the mac), perhaps our views
disagree and the core usability team (seth, calum, nils, others) should
come up with a recommendation via the hig. I too somewhat worry that it
will be abused, and that every app will add its little icon ala windows
(some gnome apps do this now as well).

>  
> The basic point is to be able to do unobtrusive notification - make
> status available for the user to see if they're looking, but not
> interrupt their flow if they are currently doing something else.
> 
> I agree with most of the rest of your post, but you left out a key
> item - admins need to be able to lock down all or part of the panel,
> which effectively conceals its "collection of applets" nature and
> makes it seem like a fixed unified object.

yeah, this is a little outside of my realm of thinking due to the fact
that i tend to think more in terms of single user systems. :) You
definately have a point though.

> 
> It definitely seems that one of the big improvements we could make is
> to get nautilus and panel to seem like more of a coherent whole, so a
> "launcher" in either place is the same type of thing.

Well there was talk of (and perhaps even some code) allowing icons to
include plugged in bonobo applets. This could i guess in theory give us
a panel editor.

dave