Systray jobs and notifications

[Rob Scheepmaker]

On Thursday 09 April 2009 16:47:41 Sven Burmeister wrote:
> Am Montag, 6. April 2009 16:30:21 schrieb Rob Scheepmaker:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I wanted to discuss what I think should be improved in the plasma
> > systemtray... not the spec, but the jobs/notifications. We discussed some
> > of this already at tokamak, but there's still a lot to be done if we want
> > this to be implemented for 4.3:
>
> Even if the icon gets some animation, it is still small and the event
> "notification closed" is still the same, i.e. the signal remains the same
> as the user might just notice the "it's gone" and not whereto. There have
> been people stating that they thought the job was done because the
> notification was closed. They e.g. pulled the cable or shut-down the
> computer.

As discussed in this threat, completed jobs will be turned in a notification 
widget (with which I also implied, showing it, if it isn't already showing), 
so you have some obvious notification when a job has finished.

> To solve this, progress jobs should not be hidden by default. If the user
> hides it and forgets about it afterwards, that's his fault.

in trunk/, jobs aren't hidden by default, since we now have extendergroup and 
can show a total progressbar for all jobs, which takes up only little space. 
Still this is some major reworking of the systemtray so nothing is definate 
yet: some stuff just requires real life usage to make sensible decisions.
The user can expand this group to see individual jobs if he likes. By default 
this group is collapsed, but it remembers it's state, so if you always want to 
see all details, that's possible.

> Currently it is only possible to either hide all notification or show all
> (clicking on the icon), which I think could be improved too, i.e. let the
> user hide/collapse individual notifications.

with the grouping not anymore. jobs are already grouped, and as discussed in 
this threat (I'd suggest you'd read it ;) ) we're planning to also group 
completed job notifications in a seperate group. Both can be expanded and 
collapsed to show sub items. Besides: each extender item allows itself to be 
collapsed/expanded by clicking it's icon (the app icon on the left) or double 
clicking the drag bar.

> Further, the notifications cannot be detached (if one wants them to stay on
> the desktop) if the desktop/panel is locked, which I think does not make
> sense, because it is just annoying having to unlock/drag/re-lock just to
> detach a notification.

Well, we've talked about this a couple of times but there's no way around this 
that I see: locked means, besides not being able to add new applets, that your 
widgets won't more, or resize.... which is kind of the point of locking your 
desktop. This fundamentally clashes with being able to detach an extender 
which does all of those things: it creates a new applet, and very likely 
causes other applets to move or resize. If you've got a good idea though: I'm 
all ears.
In the meantime, there is a workaround: not locking your widgets. :p

Regards,
Rob