Re: The case for cross-desktop dockability and notification-area applet ideology revision.

[Sriram Ramkrishna <sri aracnet com>]

You might considering moving this thread to usability list.

sri

On Sun, Aug 01, 2004 at 08:16:49PM -0700, Tristan Buckmaster com wrote:
> On Sun, 01 Aug 2004 11:38:38 -0400, Curtis Hovey wrote
> 
> > What a coincidence.  I just posted a gripe about the
> > gaim applet on another thread.  I can see it is 
> > running from the window list and window selector, 
> > but it never tells me about what is happening to my
> > connections and conversations.
> > 
> > A notification applet must say something about the
> > state of function or content, not whether it is 
> > running.
> > 
> > Rhythmbox tells me what is playing and provides some
> > quick controls to change it.
> > 
> > EggCUPS tells me when something is printing.
> > 
> > RHN notification tell me if updates are available.
> > 
> > A smart mail applet would show me how many new 
> > messages are in my Evo Inbox Outbox.
> > 
> > A nice sharing applet would tell me how many uploads
> > and downloads are occurring
> > 
> > If you want the window list to take up less space as
> > the Gaim applet, then it should be modified to show 
> > only icon.  However, all the items listed above are 
> > providing app state, _not_ document state.  I would 
> > not use an icon only view of the window list, 
> > because most of my windows are documents and I need 
> > to know there title to quickly select them.  So the 
> > value of a notifcation area is for non-windowed 
> > apps, or apps that do not need window focus to work.
> 
> By mixing icons only and icons with titles the task
> list becomes inconsistant and confusing.  If you wanted
> to save space and you could use what I was dicussing in
> the other thread in the following way: have both panel
> applets next to each other in a thin panel.  The task
> list at the moment shows icons for each window and the
> title of each window.  My solution would only show the
> icons of each unique application and the titles of the
> windows of the application that the window in focus
> belongs to so it would take up less space.  You can
> still quickly select your windows by title and your
> applications that shouldn't use the notification space
> don't need to use it and keep their functionality.  You
> could have useful buttons in the panel such as a drop
> down hide and a drop down close with the items to have
> the effect on all windows of the current application or
> all windows except the current window in focus.
> 
> So everyone is happy:
> 
> Keep notification space clean
> Reduce complexity (no need for tabbed applications)
> Reduce use of desktop space (what was discussed
> previous, no tab toolbar in applications and
> applications don't have to be as large as the largest
> tab)
> Introduce new functionality to the user (tab like
> features, close all windows of application, close all
> but current........blah)
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