[Usability]Re: Notification Area guidelines

[Mark McLoughlin <mark skynet ie>]

Hey,
	I've just read over the whole thread again and in the interests of not
having another "I thought we agreed ..." flamewar I thought I'd post the
conclusions I've drawn so far:

* Minimizing to Notification Area:

    o Hitting the close button on an application window should quit
      the application once all windows are closed. The close button
      should not be used as a "minimize to notification area" button
      as this will confuse the convention.

* Notification versus Status:

    o Most icons in the Notification Area will remain there as long
      as the application itself is running. If there is an important
      change in the status the Notification Area may choose to
      display a balloon message and/or blink the icon for a period.

    o In some cases applications will display notification by adding a
      new blinking icon (possibly with a balloon message) to the
      notification area and removing it again after a period. In most
      cases, though, it is expected that blinking an existing icon
      (rather than adding a new icon) will work better.

* Status Icons for daemons

     o Daemon's should only use a status icon for actually displaying
       status. "I am running" doesn't count as status - this should
       not require intervention from the user.

* Label's in Icons

     o A very small label beside an icon is okay in some circumtances
       where the label will be able to convey some useful extra
       information. E.g. "percentage remaining" beside the battery
       icon, "number of new mails" beside the email icon. This should
       probably be no more than 3 or 4 characters. (Not a very good
       guideline as it doesn't apply to all locales).

* Icon's should be focusable.

* The "Remove Icon" item in the popup menu will basically be a
  shortcut for an application specific preference. Applications should
  provide this preference.

* No real conclusion on what an application should put add to the
  popup menu.

* Single-click to bring up the "more information" dialog.

* If we can come to an agreement with the KDE folks on any of the
  guidelines it would be good to have it them in the spec. Consistency
  at this level would be really good.

* Pressing an icon should depress the icon as if it is a button.


Good Luck,
Mark.