thoughts on the systray

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Monday 14 February 2005 01:20, Malte S. Stretz wrote:
> On Monday 14 February 2005 08:57 CET Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > On Sunday 13 February 2005 06:12, Gábor Lehel wrote:
> > >[...]
> > > replace their taskbar entry entirely with an icon in this area...).
> >
> > and break UI consistency. no, let's not copy MacOS X here please.
>
> Actually, why not?  This is almost one of the long-outstanding wishes I
> never got to report via b.k.o :)

because it's universally mocked in the usability community and because 
new/average users tend to struggle with the dock. in a recent blog entry i 
related having a conversation with 3 MacOS X users (one newbie, one average, 
one advanced) and all three agreed the dock looked great but was a pain to 
work with.

> There are now quite some apps which offer the possibility to be moved to
> the systray, but still a bunch of them can't be (and others which probably
> never will).  One example is KNode -- I have it running 24/7 and it always
> takes up some space in my taskbar which other apps could use better.

so let's make the taskbar deal with these apps better. let's not break the 
systray further.

> A really cool feature would be an additional "Minimize to Traybar" for each
> app.  That way you could store away long-running apps to a place where they
> don't take up so much space on your instantly available Taskbar (my main

how about a "Minimize to Icon on Taskbar"? we could then push all these icons 
to one end of the taskbar, and you'll still have access to all their windows 
individually (which you wouldn't with the systray) and we don't break our UI 
metaphores. i'd actually be willing to implement this ... would it satisfy 
your needs?

(and if you say, "but i want them out of the taskbar altogether!" i'll point 
you to the window settings in kwin for "skip taskbar" ;)

> That would actually make the Traybar another kind of Taskbar, but why not?

the answer is in the question.

> The Traybar is the most inconsistent UI thing invented ever, it can't be
> broken much more than it is by design ;~)

lol ... well, see, i'm attempting to fix it, not break it further =P

> > User: "why are only SOME of my windows in the taskbar?"
>
> Admin: "Because you put the other ones explicitly to the Traybar?"

User: "Damn geeks. No wonder I hate computers."

> Per default no app at all should minimize only to the Traybar (including
> KMix and friends).  But if the users chooses deliberately to minimize the
> app to the Traybar, he should know what he did :)

when i find the rainbow coloured world where users are this rational, i'll be 
sure to bring you with me =P

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43
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