Hi,
I would like to know if there were already some thoughts on redesining
the communication that applications do with the users?
Some elements of criticm in GNOME
===========================
Applets, Panel, Messages, Notification Area & Application behaviour.
* Applications:
* When closing an application some applications keep running and be
visible in the notification area
* Some applications like workrave seem to use different mechanisms
to communicate to the user.
* Notification area:
* Every application does behave different when you right or left
click on its icon
in the notification area
* Messages (libnotify etc.)
* Sometimes you get messages that disapear and you can
not get back (no glipper kind of functionality)
* Panel
* If you add more nice starters and applets, the panel gets
cluttered more and more.
* You sometimes loose a function/applet from the panel that is core
to the desktop.
Suggestions
==========
* All applications of a kind should only be allowed to use the
notification area or GNOMEs notification system if they use certain
kind of messaging. I expect different classes of applications to work
in the same way. I would like to see every music application to react
the same way on:
* single click
* double click
* right click
The notification area is something that I expect my desktop to have
under control. I should not need to learn about how different
applications react. For instance some music browsers require a right
click and choice to skip a track and some open the skip dialogue with
a left click.
* I also suggest to have a more standardized and monolithic panel
that can not be destructed
by accident. Since GNOME 2.2 or so where I started to use GNOME I
experience now and then that parts of the panel got lost. This could
also be better from a memory perspective. Today you have a panel and
many processes and some alone take some 50-60 MB. I suppose if these
were integrated this would be less?
* If somebody wants to add additional functionality I suggest that
this functionality is added where it makes sense from the panels
perspective (or better from the perspective of HIG, usability
standpoint)
* I would expect more features like queuing of icons/messages/applets
on the panel to save space. Like the "Window selector applet" - you
only have one visible icon but then can select multiple applications.
* Somehow the icons in the notification area have become another menu
for applications. I mean you can open preferences and much more (like
with GAIM).
Any thoughts or plans on this?
Thilo
--
Thilo Pfennig
http://issues.foresightlinux.org/confluence/x/R
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