Re: [Usability]Re: Notification area (was: Music player UI)

[Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>]

On Sun, 2003-02-23 at 16:47, Per Cederberg wrote:
> Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> > Jens mentioned that he's found people confused by using the tray.  I've
> > seen that on windows as well.  But I generally find that as a failure on how
> > it was implemented.  Microsoft hides most of the ioons in the system tray
> > and it's the "out of sight out of mind mentality" at work here.  I think
> > this solution is workable.
> 
> Another problem with the Windows system tray is that there is
> no structure as to which programs reside in there. On most
> systems it is just crowded with junk, half of which is of no
> importance whatsoever to the user (I used to go through great
> pains attempting to remove or hide most of those things).

This is also the platform where people install things like Bonsai
Buddy... ;-)

On a home machine, you can't stop it no matter what.  If people install
Crap(tm), Crap(tm) will run.  If not a status docklet, then an applet,
if not an applet, a whole new panel, etc.  At the office, well - users
shouldn't be able to install Crap(tm).  

> 
> If a Gnome notification area is going to be used more
> extensively, it might be a good idea to establish some policy
> for it. For instance, I personally don't like to see icons
> such as "multimedia keys daemon active" in there...

Ya, the multimedia keys one is pretty dumb.  I'm not sure what its
purpose is.  We don't have gconf or bonobo-activation running in there,
neither should we have a key-binding daemon there.  Preferences should
be linked to in the Control Center, like usual.

> 
> Another thing. I'm not sure if most users are going to
> understand the difference between the notification area and
> the other applets. In the end, they are both icons that you
> can click, and that change appearence from time to time. Are
> there some ideas out there on how to unify this?

Ya, hide Applets from users.  Applets are evil evil evil.  ~,^  They
offer a lot of functionality for the advanced user, just like a terminal
does (a very useful app, but not something I'd embed in Nautilus or the
panel... oh wait, we already have one in the panel).  A user does *not*
need a command-line on the their panel, nor do they need to see their
CPU usage graphed, etc.

The few good ones (volume control, as an example) could either continue
to be exposed, or made into status icons (the status of my volume).

Most the other applets we have are either a) useless (geyes, oo boy,
there's something we need), or b) duplicated elsewhere (dictionary
lookup, for example).

I'd be all for removing the concept of applet altogether, personally,
but I guess enough l337 h4c|<3r5 would be against the idea of not being
able to have a cdplayer applet or something (which is silly, given that
gnome-cd now has a status icon ;-)  Most of the applets I've seen are
things that would work quite well as a status icon, tho. 

> 
> Is this "notification area" thing a topic for a future HIG?
> I couldn't find it in there, but I might not have been
> searching enough.
> 
> /Per
> 
> ----
> Per Cederberg
> http://www.percederberg.net/
> 
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