Systray jobs and notifications

[Rob Scheepmaker]

On Tuesday 07 April 2009 03:04:32 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Monday 06 April 2009, Celeste Lyn Paul wrote:
> > On Monday 06 April 2009 08:01:16 pm Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > > On Monday 06 April 2009, Rob Scheepmaker wrote:
> > > > On Monday 06 April 2009 19:02:58 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > > > > what about the busy widget we have? we could just use that, with a
> > > > > number in the middle of it showing how many jobs are currently
> > > > > being processed?
> > > >
> > > > That's a very good idea... but what if there are both notifications
> > > > and jobs present?
> > >
> > > how about: animate the spinner if there are jobs, show the number of
> > > jobs and notifications combined?
> >
> > What information are you trying to find out when you look at the widget?
> > Total number of jobs (progress bars), or the number of jobs that have
> > finished and are ready to be opened (notifications)?
>
> both, i think.
>
> > I think the idea of using animation to indicate a current job running is
> > a good idea. Is there an icon designed for this yet? At first I thought
> > of an animated Down arrow (a metaphor that is used throughout KDE4 in
> > download icons), but Aaron mentions a spinner that could work too.
>
> bonus is that we already have the spinner and we've been using it around
> kde (plasma, gwenview, dolphin .. i keep seeing it in new places :P)
>
> > He also mentions using a number to indicate some state. I think the only
> > relevant information would be how many files are completed, but that
> > number by itself may (or may not) be confusing. I'm not sure if some
> > users will think of it as the total number of files instead of completed,
> > or if that is something that can easily be learned. What about
> > completed/total? Would that be too big compared to just using completed
> > or total?
>
> we could make room for it; but then we're back to "what does the total
> number include?"
>
> it could be either jobs only or jobs + notifications ... *thinks*
>
> in the case that there are 2 jobs downloading, one finished and a kopete
> chat update notification would it say:
>
> 2/3
> 3/4
> 2/4
>
> to me, 3/4 makes the most sense. if there are no jobs running we could drop
> the first number and just show the total?
>
> or we could show no number and just the spinner unanimated in the case of
> only notifications. however, it would be nice to see that number grow if
> new notifications appear.

I've been doing some more thinking about this: what about splitting this up in 
2 icons? One "i" icon with a number that shows the total amount of 
notifications, and the spinner with a number showing the total amount of 
running jobs. It takes up a little bit more space, but makes it much easier to 
see at a glance what is going on.
Then both icons trigger showing the dialog, but when the notifications one is 
clicked, it hides the entire job group, and when the job one is clicked, it 
hides the notifications. Still one extender, but then filtering certain 
information. That also solves the problem of a crowded systray extender.
I think it might make sense in that case that both icons toggle (they're 
either monochrome or color or something like that to distinguish whether or 
not they're on or off) 

What do you think of this idea?

Regards,
Rob