Re: [Usability] Integration and Standardisation of Notification area and behaviour

["Simon Hough" <shough gmail com>]

I have been a reader for a while here, posting for the first time:)

Anyway, I do agree that the quick launch bar can seem very cluttered
at times and wondered if making it more dynamic would help, i.e. pressing all three mouse buttons would trigger an action where
all my quick launch icons would surround my mouse pointer arranged
in a circle, then click on the app I wish to launch.

Just my 2 cents:)

Simon

On 4/29/07, Thilo Pfennig <thilopfennig foresightlinux org> wrote:

Hi,

I would like to know if there were already some thoughts on redesining
the communication that applications do with the users?



Some elements of criticm in GNOME
===========================
Applets, Panel, Messages, Notification Area & Application behaviour.

* Applications:
   * When closing an application some applications keep running and be
      visible in the notification area
   * Some applications like workrave seem to use different mechanisms
     to communicate to the user.

* Notification area:
   * Every application does behave different when you right or left
click on its icon
     in the notification area

* Messages (libnotify etc.)
  * Sometimes you get messages that disapear and you can
     not get back (no glipper kind of functionality)

* Panel
   * If you add more nice starters and applets, the panel gets
cluttered more and more.
   * You sometimes loose a function/applet from the panel that is core
to the desktop.


Suggestions
==========

* All applications of a kind should only be allowed to use the
notification area or GNOMEs notification system if they use certain
kind of messaging. I expect different classes of applications to work
in the same way.  I would like to see every music application to react
the same way on:
    * single click
    * double click
    * right click

The notification area is something that I expect my desktop to have
under control. I should not need to learn about how different
applications react. For instance some music browsers require a right
click and choice to skip a track and some open the skip dialogue with
a left click.

* I also suggest to have a more standardized and monolithic panel
that can not be destructed
by accident. Since GNOME 2.2 or so where I started to use GNOME I
experience now and then that parts of the panel got lost. This could
also be better from a memory perspective. Today you have a panel and
many processes and some alone take some 50-60 MB. I suppose if these
were integrated this would be less?

* If somebody wants to add additional functionality I suggest that
this functionality is added where it makes sense from the panels
perspective (or better from the perspective of HIG, usability
standpoint)

* I would expect more features like queuing of icons/messages/applets
on the panel to save space. Like the "Window selector applet" - you
only have one visible icon but then can select multiple applications.

* Somehow the icons in the notification area have become another menu
for applications. I mean you can open preferences and much more (like
with GAIM).



Any thoughts or plans on this?


Thilo





--
Thilo Pfennig
http://issues.foresightlinux.org/confluence/x/R
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