VDG suggestions and wishes about the system tray

[kde at privat.broulik.de]

Hi,

> If your application has finished its job like e.g. an update  
> notifier but should continue to run in the background, then use the  
> "passive" flag. If you want to misuse the system tray as second task  
> bar, then do not use the passive flag, but let it remain active. And  
> if your application has finished its job and should not continue to  
> run in the background then, quit the application upon closing the  
> main window and do not continue to use the status notifier

So, that's exactly the way we have it at the moment, isn't it?

> One question remains though, why do users not want KTorrent to take  
> up 22px, but are okay with an indicator for the music player while  
> having the music control plasmoid active too.

For example I do not use a taskbar/window list, if "background applications"
moved to the taskbar I would no longer be able to access them.

> Or why are they okay with KTorrent taking up space while  
> downloading, but not while seeding.

When downloading you likely want to open that file after it's done. To ease
monitoring, it stays there. Seeding is a process that does not involve  
the user
at all. But I don't know much about Torrent, so I could be wrong.

> My solution would be to allow users to move the "active" state to  
> the popup, while the "needsAttention" one will then still be  
> displayed in the panel. Though only after they configured system  
> tray to do it like that, not as default.

I like that idea. However, that would make monitoring system status difficult.
For example at the moment I have in my systray visible (Plasma 4, though):
  - Amarok (paused) (btw I like that use mpris thing for that and  
don't have players
    sit in the tray approach), "Active state"
  - KMail 149 unread mails, "Active state"
  - KTP online, "Active state"
  - KMix, 50% volume, "Active state"

None of them have the "NeedsAttentionStatus" yet still they're all  
useful (except
maybe Amarok)

Cheers,
Kai Uwe