Re: [Usability]Notification Area guidelines

[Mark McLoughlin <mark skynet ie>]

Hi,

On Wed, 2003-03-12 at 15:01, Rodney Dawes wrote:
> I definately agree that we need some kind of standardization. Rather
> than having this in the HIG though, it may make sense to include it as
> an addendum/extension to the System Tray Spec, as this is something that
> affects cross-desktop applications, rather than just GNOME. Doing so
> would help GNOME docklets look better in KDE, and vice versa. Anyway,
> extraneous thoughts follow below. :)

	Sure. I'd like to get as much of this as possible into the spec. KDE
already have guidlines that are very different from what I'm proposing.
So, we may not be able to come to agreement on all of it. In any case,
also having this in the HIG is a bit handier for application developers.

> > 	Both of these sound like cases where custom applets would be
> > more suitable. However, both of these cases seem to be recommended by
> > the KDE guidelines[2].
> 
> Custom applets are really annoying usually. It is even very annoying
> that the Notification Area is an applet, as the alignment on the panel
> doesn't affect the resizing when icons are added/removed. 

	That's a bug that needs to be fixed - its the same bug as "I made my
panel bigger and when I made it smaller the launchers were in the wrong
place" and the many other variations of that .

> The
> notification area is also something that should really just *always*
> be on the panel. As with sounds, it should also be said that the
> notification area is not the *only* way you should notify users of
> important events. Doing so is bad UI. If the event is extremely
> important, it is probably best to also create a modal dialog, or
> the like, to notify the user, as well as play an emergency sound of
> some sort 

	That's a given. Not all events are important though. And thats what
this thing is for.

> > 	+ Single-clicking on the icon or pressing Enter/Space when the
> > 	  icon has focus should present a dialog with further
> > 	  information on the status currently displayed. The dialog
> > 	  may optionally also the user to control the status.
> 
> Are the individual icons in the tray focusable? They don't seem to be to
> me. If they are supposed to be, this is probably a bug in the applet. I
> don't understand your last sentence here, it is incomplete.

	Yes, its a bug and it will be fixed.

> > 	+ If the notification area goes away, the icon should be
> > 	  re-displayed when a new notification area appears.
> 
> This needs to be automated in the implementation of the tray stuff
> somehow. 

	Yes.

> > 	+ Should the icon blinking time out? After how long?
> 
> I would say that rather than "time out", it would just blink for N
> seconds, and if no action has been taken, a still status icon displaying
> something relevent to what the blinking was for, should be used.  For
> instance, if you receive a new IM, you may want to blink between the
> user's availability status and an icon to represent a message, and after
> a number of seconds, just keep the icon set to the message icon.

	Thats what I mean.

Good Luck,
Mark.

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