[Ayatana] (In)sensitive menu itens for displaying information

[Conscious User <conscioususer@xxxxxxx>]

Hi,

This has been discussed before but I don't remember what
came out of it and could find the thread via Google.

Seeing how indicator-datetime shows the full date and
seeing how new independent projects like this

http://blog.rtg.in.ua/2010/10/have-you-seen-my-weather-applet.html

specifically this screenshot:

http://ubuntuone.com/p/J4U/

handle information display, I can't help but thinking how
using insensitive menu items for displaying information
looks and feels wrong. Even *sensitive* menu items used
for this purpose feel wrong. Look at the power indicator:
what does the user expect to happen when clicking on the
battery status item? I don't think it's obvious. Also,
look at the sound indicator: when Rhythmbox is playing,
it has two clickable entries, one with the Rhythmbox name
and other with the track info. Both have the same effect,
and the second looks like it's clickable just for the
sake of being clickable.

Indicators need a way to display information that do not
look clickable at all.

Before someone mentions it, I don't think tooltips are
the solution... I never liked the idea of using tooltips
for functionality this causes discoverability problems
and can also cause problems when a developer wants to
use tooltips for their main purpose (help and
accessibility)

(and of course this discussion is currently moot as
indicators do not support tooltips at all)