Re: [Muine] [UI CHANGES 6/6] desrt's tray icon patch (as found in ubuntu)

[justin+gnome dicatek com]

Some tardy thoughts from an occasional mailing-list reader:

On Mon, 20 Mar 2006, Jorn Baayen wrote:

> The tray icon menu provides all functionality needed to do basic
> playback management: Play/pause, skipping songs, and selecting
> songs/albums to play. One does not need to pop up the main window to
> perform these tasks. Therefore the primary mouse button should pop up
> the thing that is most important, namely the menu. Not pop up the main
> window which is unnecessary for most tasks.

I had not noticed this *at all* until you pointed it out. Now that I
notice it, it seems rather nifty. I would add though, that one reason I
bring up the main window is to check what's on the playlist and possibly
jump around.

To this end, I wonder if having a short list of songs at the top or bottom
of the tray icon menu would be workable? It would be something like the
"Window Selector" panel widget, which acts like the Mac's program switcher
pre-OS X.

> Using the middle mouse button to play/pause is *rather* obscure and that
> at the very least has to be removed.

Apparently on version of Muine I have installed, the middle button shows
and hides the main window, which is also new to me. I do like the ability
to bring up the window with a single click...

It seems like you're making the tray icon behave more like a panel widget
and less like a tray icon, which I expect to be more-or-less passive. How
about going whole-hog and moving it out of the so-called "Panel
Notification Area" entirely? Just have a panel menu that controls Muine,
starting it up in a hidden state if necessary. Then no one would be
suprised that it acts like a menu, since it would actually be one.

Also, in the spirit of contrariness, I propose that the left button bring
up the menu, and the right button show/hide the main window, exactly the
opposite of GAIM. :p


Justin