[Rhythmbox-devel] Notification area and HIG

[Luca Ferretti <elle uca libero it>]

The HIG draft has a section about notification area behavior and usage.
Take a look to Usability page on developer.gnome.org for more info.

Here a small summarize and some personal notes. 

------------------------------------------------------------

<quote id="1">
This area is reserved for notifying the user of non-critical,
application-related events (for example, arrival of new email, or a chat
'buddy' having logged on), and for monitoring the status of system tasks
(for example, network or printer activity, or laptop battery charging).
</quote>

So the current rb usage of not.area is wrong. But what about put an icon
when the playing track change? This is of course a non-critical and
application-related event. Let's go reading

<quote id="2">
write an applet instead of using the notification area if:
      * clicking your notification area icon does anything other than
        opening a window directly associated with the icon (e.g. a mail
        folder window for a new mail icon, or a print queue window for
        printer notification icon), or 
      * there are icon-specific options on its context menu for doing
        anything other than that
</quote>
        
Could someone explain it to me? Or better could you please go on and
read the last quote (id=7) and explain me how can they match?

BTW there are no rules about "use not.area instead of applet if..." :-(

<quote id="3">Only core GNOME programs may perpetually display an icon
or use flat images.</quote>

A core program is an application included in GNOME Desktop release,
isn't it?

<quote id="4">Icons should not usually appear animated. The may change
to indicate a change of state, but should not do so when that change is
occurs regularly rapidly.</quote>

<quote id="5">An icon may blink for n (=5?) seconds when first displayed
if showing the icon is not caused by user action.</quote>

(print is user driven, so no blink; new email can blink)

<quote id="6">Do not rely on blinking or animation as a means of
alerting the user to any particular event</quote>

</quote id="7">
      * Double-click or Space key should perform the icon's default
        action. Normally this should open a window with relevant data,
        for example:
              * the printer queue for a printing-in-progress icon.
              * the inbox for an incoming email icon
              * the message for an incoming message
      * Right-click or Shift-F10 should present a menu for the icon
        containing at least the icon's default action."
</quote>

----------------------------------------------------

Now the question is: can Rhythmbox use the notification area?

Of course the current behavior is wrong: we aren't notifying anything,
but we are providing a "small-mode".

The only event that Rhythmbox can notify to user is the track change.
Moreover, if I'm right, we can't perpetually display an icon in
not.area. 

So the only acceptable behavior in my mind is:
     1. track change and a blinking icon appear in notification area
     2. move mouse pointer over it and a tooltip with new song's title,
        artist, duration and rating appear
     3. double click the icon to open the rb window
     4. right clic the icon to pop-up a menu
     5. you move your mouse away and the icon in not.area disappear
     6. if you don't move the mouse over the icon before 15~20 seconds
        the icon disappear

Note to point 4: menu should be at least
 _____________
| Open Window |
|-------------|
| Next Song   |
| Prev Song   |
|_____________|

This is should be an acceptable behavior. But note that it lives on the
edge: new mail is an unplanned event, while a song change is not. You
don't need to be alerted: "Hey, wake up, song is change!!!". The
Rhythmbox not.icon is more a facilities to 1) hide the window 2) go to
next or prev song.

IMHO we should forget the not.area and move to a good mini window.