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{#} To reply to the author, write to Ben Rister <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> What if you made an option where it could function like the Dock, with the
> tooltip concept? That way you could have a very thin BuddyBar only
> displaying icons going down the left or right hand side, and a mouse-over
> would show the buddy's name. That would conserve space too, even if you've
> got it on the bottom.
Well, the problem with making it like the dock in that way is that the dock
is very poorly designed in that way. =) Don't get me wrong, I love the
dock, but having no text labels available at a glance was not the most
clever design idea. Really, do you want to have to remember that that third
AIM logo from the top is buddy B? And then what happens when somebody logs
off, but you're not sure who, and so you don't know who any of those little
icons are without going and mousing over each and every one individually...
> I can't quite tell in your mock-up, because the image is shrunk, but it
> looks like even with only a few buddies, the bar extends across the entire
> width of the screen. I would prefer it be more like the Control Strip from
> OS 9, where it extends only to the width it needs. And maybe a minimize
> widget that would shrink it to either completely hidden except for a
> maximize widget, or a "use the smallest amount of real estate while still
> displaying minimal information" state, with maybe icons indicating the
> number of online buddies per service (like Mail's icon.)
This is true, it does take the whole space. The rationale for this is that
for one, we're not talking about a very big space vertically, and using even
a portion of it makes the bottom of the screen off-limits to the dock. It's
also more visually appealing, and it's also been shown that "bars" that
don't extend fully across the screen are felt to be more intrusive into the
content area than bars which cleanly separate the screen.
>> * Issue with apps placing windows with resize controls behind the bar? Only
>> applies to when floating, but maybe we can tell the system to not autosize
>> windows there, like the dock does (for the apps which listen). Can always
>> hide Fire momentarily if it is an issue for a second.
>
> Another nice option would be auto-hide. That would take care of this
> problem.
True, good point.
br
>> If this sounds like something that many people would like, then I'll start
>> working on it, and a while down the line we'll have a great new feature that
>> puts Fire above everything else in another way. If not, well, then we can
>> all just keep using the buddy list all the time. I have a TiBook, I guess I
>> can spare a couple inches on the side. =)
>
> I think it sounds like a great idea!
>
> jon
>
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