system tray work

[Marco Martin]

On Thursday 29 April 2010, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> hey all ..
> 
> so the system tray is really shaping up pretty nicely these days, thanks
> mostly to the work of marco, frederik and aurelien. woo! :)
> 
> i just committed some changes to the layout of things that i'd like to get
> some feedback on. (and i recommend updating the battery applet while you're
> at it.)
> 
> now ... i'm not going to spoil it and say what's changed as i'm not even
> sure anyone will notice. (which would also be a sort of success?)

I'm going to spoil one :p
ordering of the important area: I'm not sure i agree, for the following 
reason:
that i icon, is the most fixed, always there icon of all, since the systray is 
usually at the right side it stays indeed always fixed (apart when the 
expander appears/disappears)
if the important area is at right, i fear it would appear way too jumpy, since 
it would move on each icon apearing/disappearing.
other than thatm it would make more sense, but it seems kinda a "visual" 
blocker (note that if the problems are those nitpicks is a sign that we have 
pretty much successfully fixed the severe ones :p)

> in any case, i'm quite happy with how it is now but am open to suggestions
> (esp from the afformentioned trio of system tray greatnesses, though
> aurelien is now on vacation so i don't suppose he'll speak up much ;)
> 
> some things still to nail down:
> 
> * consistent mouse overs for things like the battery icon relative to the
> status item notifiers

yep, fo plasmoids that don't use an iconwidget unfortunately it has to be 
completely reimplemented (eh, that's the price for flexibility :p)

> * whether or not to show tooltips instantly for items in the tray or wait
> the time out as per usual

I think it's better having a timeout

> * separation between types (e.g. hardware vs app icons)?

at the moment they are ordered:
apps, communication, services, hardware.

i tried also to separe them more, putting them in different layouts, but 
received some complaints about the systray being too wide in multiline ones in 
big panels, but orderig is probably enough

> * increased consistency in interaction; i really dislike krandr's window
> now

the icon, context menu or the kcm than gets open?


ah, a last point to add:
* klipper.
right now Fredrik has an almost-complete port to kstatusnotifier, however 
there is a feature that can't be ported to it:
the klipper menu can be opened with a keyboard shortcut, and is possible to 
set it to open at the systray position or at mouse cursor position.
with kstatusnotifier is possible only to open it at mouse cursor position, 
since you can't know the icon position.
i would just force to open it at cursor position, but you know, removing 
configuration options is always quite an issue :)

Cheers,
Marco Martin