Dylan McCall wrote: > The problem with "the Windows way" is that there is a complete lack of > consistency in that environment. Learning a new application is a > complex task since they all behave differently. As an example, there > is the question of whether it places itself in the notification area! > Really, "programs" should not place themselves there. The notification > area exists for programs to present information about notable > happenings. That Rhythmbox is running is by no means a notable > happening. The notification area's purpose has been extended to > serving as a home for programs which always run in the background like > NetworkManager, and I for one consider that acceptable. NetworkManager > isn't just placing a link to itself there; its entire user interface > resides in that notification area icon. Besides, one's network status > most definitely is a notification, just as the fact that printing or > bluetooth is enabled. A nice thing to note with the programs that do > belong there is that they do not have Quit options in their context > menus, because they really are core functions of the operating system. > I think that is a good rule of thumb. (Then again, I am not a fan of > the Quit option anywhere since programs should scale down and quit > automatically, but that's another discussion).
The problem is one of necessity. The reason so many programs use the notification area is that it is an incredibly useful place for a running program to sit, and saves a massive amount of space by not being on the taskbar. At the moment I have MSN (which I stay on in 'offline' mode so people can send me im's) Azureus, Exensis Suitcase (font management), Avast (antivirus) and occasionally skype all using it. If we were to get rid of the ability for programs to use it, we would need to replace it with something as useful as while it is not an ideal solution and possibly a misapplication of its original purpose the reason for it is there was a need and it happened to get co-opted to fill this need. If you removed the functionality from my system without replacing it with something it would be a massive drop in utility. Possibly the best solution is to create two areas side by side, one for apps and one for notifications, maybe seperate them with a half-width icon of space - best of both worlds. > With desktop Linux we are really pushing new ground in the consistency > department, where both Apple and Microsoft fear to tread -- instead, > those two behemoths see fit to simply integrate their own built in > programs and hope that nobody tries differently. I wouldn't go that far. Apple tends to be best for consistency, followed by MS then Linux. As an example the flagship Linux graphics app 'Gimp' has *two* file menus. On Windows it actually has *three*!!! Want a new document? You click 'File->...' Oops, the option you want is in that /other/ File menu. And this is a major piece of software, and it sports one of the most non-standard, unintuitive and convoluted interfaces know to man. It's better to have one mediocre standard that 5 good ones, which seems to be Linux' problem. That being said everyone uses their computers in massively different ways, so what is good for one may be horrible for another, and an option that you think is pointless may be relied on by someone else. I think it's why doing UI design is so difficult - because there are no absolutes and everything is subjective. I think the key is to just keep discussing it and see what ideas stick. -- ubuntu-art mailing list ubuntu-art@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-art
