Re: [Usability]Re: Notification Area guidelines

[Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>]

On Wed, 2003-03-12 at 20:15, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
> 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:

<snip/>

> * 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.

Not sure about the "or" bit here.  It should be one or the other, for
consistancy.  

As another question, can balloon message have icons?  A lot like a
dialog can?  Would make the balloons a little big, but perhaps more
"instantly meaningful" (a lot like flashing a particular icon), along
with just looking pertier (yay eye-candy ;-)

> 
>     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.
> 

Yes, definitely agree that an extra icon is unnecessary.  It "bloats"
the panel, if only briefly, and doesn't achieve anything useful.

<snip/>

> 
> Good Luck,
> Mark.
> 
> 
> 
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