Re: Will traditional notification area be available in gnome-shell 3.0?

[William Jon McCann <william jon mccann gmail com>]

Hey,

On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 2:07 PM, Sandy Armstrong
<sanfordarmstrong gmail com> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 10:50 AM, William Jon McCann
> <william jon mccann gmail com> wrote:
>> Hey Sandy,
>>
>> (I'm out of town and short on time today but wanted to reply quickly)
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 10:23 AM, Sandy Armstrong
>> <sanfordarmstrong gmail com> wrote:
>>> Hi folks,
>>>
>>> I have a few questions regarding Tomboy in gnome-shell 3.0:
>>>
>>> 1) Will there still be a regular old notification area available, so
>>> that Tomboy can run in the tray as it always has? (obviously running
>>> in the tray is evil, blah blah blah, let's not get into that right
>>> now)
>>
>> Not really...  We should be porting applications away from it as soon
>> as possible.  I was going to make a separate announcement about it
>> once I got a few more things done but since you brought it up :)
>
> Okay, that's really fine, thanks for clearing it up.
>
>> As you know, in GNOME 2, we had a mix of system components and
>> application notification in the notification area.  In GNOME 3, we're
>> providing a separate and exclusive place for the system status items.
>> And we've designed a new way to provide notifications to the user that
>> aims to puts the user in charge of the balance between disruption and
>> information - the Message Tray
>> [http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Guidelines/MessageTray].
>>
>> Core system components that use the notification area should be ported
>> to be shell provided system status items.   Applications that use
>> notification area status icons should be now be ported to use the
>> Message Tray.  I've started to put together a porting guide, and it
>> isn't complete:
>>
>> http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Guidelines/MessageTray/Compatibility
>
> Cool, I'll check this stuff out.
>
>>> 2) Are there any new or upcoming features in gnome-shell 3.0 that
>>> would allow Tomboy to reimplement its note menu directly in the shell
>>> (something like right-clicking the app icon), so that the notification
>>> area icon would no longer be necessary?
>>
>> We have some plans for adding jumplist-like functionality, at some
>> point, so that applications can supplement the drop down menu
>> available on App Icon launchers.  Actually weren't you looking into
>> adding that?  But basically, if no one wants it enough to write it I
>> doubt it will get done.
>
> Yeah, I proposed something, didn't see much feedback, got distracted.
> Looks like this cycle might be a good time to pick it back up.
>
> I don't expect you guys to do all the work here; I am just not
> up-to-date on shell news and wanted to make sure I knew what the
> current status of this sort of thing was.
>
>> But we really want to not use the status icon in any case.
>
> Yeah, it is gross.
>
>> You didn't ask but we probably want to have a way to search through
>> notes directly from the search box of the shell.  But again someone
>> needs to write it.
>
> Sure sure.
>
>>> 3) Will gnome-shell 3.0 support extensions that modify the shell UI in
>>> arbitrary ways?
>>
>> Not in a way that an application should expect to be able to use.
>> Extensions are not APIs.
>
> Right, and that makes sense.  I was just curious. :-)
>
>> Basically, Tomboy or any notes app is an app and should behave
>> consistent with other applications.  Hope that helps a little.  Let me
>> know where you think we need more clarification.
>
> I think that's very clear, thanks.  I don't think Tomboy is "special"
> or should be treated as such.  I do, however, think that the note menu
> provided by the tray/applet is something I don't want to lose.  In
> fact, I think it's useful outside of the context of Tomboy, too, hence
> my interest in more general jumplist support.
>
> So it sounds like the answer is that if I want something like the
> Tomboy note menu, that is a menu that is available without explicitly
> switching to Tomboy, with pinning capability, I need to get kicking on
> some patches and specs for jumplists in gnome-shell.

This would be a great topic for a session at Boston Summit actually.
Will you be there?

Thanks man,
Jon