thoughts on the systray

[Olivier Goffart]

Le Lundi 14 Février 2005 22:45, Lubos Lunak a écrit :
> On Monday 14 of February 2005 21:59, Olivier Goffart wrote:
> > There is also a need of a custom tooltip: I use often the tooltip of
> > Noatun to know what's the title of the music I'm listening to, or the
> > Kopete tooltip to know what account are offline.
>
>  I guess simply the caption could be used that way. The taskbar already has
> a support for showing tooltips for such things. Alternatively, there's also
> the possibility to specify explicitly text different from the caption for
> the taskbar entry, although KDE doesn't really use it because when I was
> playing with it it was causing weird effects. It could get sorted out or
> something like that could get added if needed though.

Yes, we could use that.
Anyway, that will make impossible to have richtext on tooltip.
look the toolitp of noatun and Kopete, it's not simply a text.


> > Still about Kopete and Noatun, they icon change of state when we are
> > playing music or away in Kopete.
> > Do you think it's a good idea to change the icon of the taskbar entry ?
>
>  Yes, why not?

I don't know exactly,  but for me, the icon of the taskbar should be the icon 
of the window which should be the icon of the application.

Now, some applications are already changing their window icons like Konqueror 
or the Kopete chat window.  So it's probably not an issue.

> > The menu + the status icon + the tooltip make actual systray icon
> > different from taskbar entry.
> > More, systray icons are on every desktop while takbar entry are only on
> > desktop the window is.
>
>  I know this. That's why I said this special part of the taskbar could be
> actually a separate applet, i.e. there'd be the "normal" taskbar and then
> there'd be the "systray" taskbar. There'd still be the other advantages of
> doing it the taskbar way instead of the current systray way.

Can you explain the difference with that applet and the current taskbar ?
I agree that it is a great feature to allow every application to be placed in 
the "systray" .  but why can't we use the current systray for that ?

(A simple UI for ksystraycmd would be perfect IMO)

> > > 2) applet-like cases

> > Systray icons are nice, because they are all 22^2 pixels, they fit good
> > into kicker.  they also have a common "look" (a simple icon)
> >
> > Currents applets are all different, and they take generally more space on
> > the kicker.
>
>  There's no reason kicker applets couldn't do what systray icons can.
> That's what I meant with KPixmapPanelApplet.

Ok.
But anyway, applet take currently the full height of my horizontal kicker. 
while systray icons are by columns of two

> > > - One additional problem here is that the content of the applet window
> > > is completely controlled by the applet. This is definitely necessary
> > > for some applets, e.g. for the kmix applet (applet, not the systray
> > > kmix). But for many the functionality along the lines of 'show this
> > > pixmap' and 'show context menu', like in Aaron's proposal, is enough. I
> > > think this could be simply handled by subclassing KPixmapPanelApplet
> > > from KPanelApplet, which would solve Aaron's objections to applets.
> >
> > Good idea, and group them nicely in the kicker.  Oh, but that's exactly
> > what the systray do.
>
>  Hmm. Do you know the answer for the Klipper systray vs Klipper applet
> question in my previous mail? 

What question ?
For me, the main difference is that Klipper Applet take the full height of 
kicker, while klipper in systray take only 50% of it.

>  And BTW I don't see any special reason why applets would have to be
> grouped in the kicker.

To save space.


I agree with all negative points the systray you wrote in your previous mail.
I also mainly agree with your solution.

But i notice that one simply could use the current systray for solutions. (But 
use it differently)
I think the idea of Aaron of making guidelines is the way to go.
 + the ability for the taskbar to put all application in the systray instead 
of having the application itself doing it.


--
Olivier
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-core-devel/attachments/20050214/dc805dc9/attachment.sig>