Thoughts on the systray II.

[Lubos Lunak]

On Monday 02 of May 2005 17:51, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Monday 02 May 2005 05:14, Lubos Lunak wrote:
> > > agreed. for now we can experiment with it using WM hints until we get
> > > the interaction down, and then when we move to an IPC mechanism with a
> > > system bus we can switch to that =)
> >
> >  Can we? If the tray is to work as an another taskbar, then it simply has
> > to rely on a WM, WM hints, and X, end of story.
>
> the input that you've been fairly resilient to so far is that while the
> tray is similar to the taskbar, it is NOT the taskbar. it has slightly
> different semantics. there is absolutely no reason by the tray must be tied
> to individual windows, unlike the taskbar which is a direct representation
> of visible windows. the tray is a respresentation of a service (e.g.
> notification)

 The tray has _also_ different semantics from the taskbar. Because it has all 
kinds of semantics. Your definition of the tray may be the best one I've seen 
so far, but it's still not a very good one. How is an application hidden in 
the tray a service? I don't consider KSIRC, KMail, K3b or Kaffeine to be a 
service (and depending on how vague you want to be with "service" Noatun, 
KSCD, Amarok, Juk, Kopete etc. are not services either).

 I am aware of the fact that the tray is not the taskbar but a mess of things 
even the person who maintains it cannot define. That's why I want to change 
it.

> > don't like that, propose something different.
>
> for the time being, we chart a course using WM hints because that's the
> only thing we have at hand that actually works. apps that have windows can
> begin to use this new mechanism (not caring how it works under the covers)
> and when/if we get an IPC mechanism capable of doing what we need, i will
> port it to that. the apps using the new system shouldn't see any change,
> and more apps will then be able to use it

 All apps can use it with my patches.

> and we can make it a bit more expressive too (e.g. supply hooks for the tray 
to ask for application status).

 You can already now ask for application status (the demands attention flag), 
and I can add easily add more, just say what you want.

>
> we have all the way until KDE4, after all.
>
> so what i'm suggesting is we take the pragmatic approach of "this works
> today" which will give us something to at least start with and if IPC never
> arrives in the fashion necessary, we will have something for KDE4 that
> doesn't suck. but i'm also leaving the door open for improvements between
> here and the release of KDE4.

 Hmm. I see I'll have to create patches also for 2),3),4) from my proposal so 
that I can present it in a complete form.

-- 
Lubos Lunak
KDE developer
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