Much needed KDE application

[Dik Takken]

Hello,

I am asking your attention for what I think is a small but very important 
thing that KDE lacks. There is no simple way to have the operating 
system send messages to KDE users in a non-intrusive way. I am thinking 
about kernel messages, messages from all sorts of deamons (like CUPS, 
Samba, etc), messages from the system administrator, and so on. The 
problem with, for example, kernel messages is that KDE itself isn't 
authorised to view the kernel logs. An external script running as root 
needs to parse the logs and send important messages to the desktop 
environment. KDE needs to offer a service to send these messages to (via 
DCOP), like a systray application, and present the messages in a 
non-intrusive way, like Kopete-style message balloons.

I think KDE needs to offer a systray application in it's base packages 
that is loaded by default on startup (just like klipper is) so that other 
KDE components can count on the fact that it is available, and use it. 
Some bugreports will also be much easier to fix in the presence of this 
application, like Bug 71022.

Also, this application will be of much use to distribution builders and 
system administrators. They can use it to improve the communication 
between the operating system and the user, for example by using (existing) 
scripts that parse log files.

Of course one could use a DCOP enabled IM application like Kopete to catch 
system messages, but other KDE components can't count on Kopete being 
loaded. We can't expect users to load Kopete in order to receive important 
system messages either, IMHO. It may be much nicer to have a simple 
special purpose systray app for this, with a message history and 
green/orange/red icons to indicate the importance of the last received 
message.

If there is any interest in this, I might consider developing it myself. I 
am a skilled C++ programmer, but I have little experience with QT/KDE.

Cheers,

Dik Takken

P.S. Please CC me, I'm not on this list.