← Back to team overview

elementary-dev-community team mailing list archive

Re: Messaging Menu

 

Well since Plank no longer has "app open" indicators, we are trying to
remove the distinction between open and closed apps (like on mobile
platforms) because it simply isn't relevant any more. This means that users
will have a combination of "open" and "closed" apps stored in their dock,
and the ones they are getting messages from (Empathy, Geary) will also be
in the messaging menu.
It's just redundant to have two visual reminders (Red Badge in Plank and
Blue Icon in Wingpanel) so it should just be removed. I think eventually
the plan is to have a system wide notification area like Android, iOS or
OSX, and this is just one step towards that.

I'm all for removing it - at least for beta1 to see if anyone actually
misses it.

On 29 August 2012 21:10, Conscious User <conscioususer@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> As an early supporter and still frequent user of the Messaging Menu,
> I want to reply to some of the points raised here. It is particular to take
> the following into consideration:
>
> 1) Whether you intend to support the concept of hiding windows.
>
> Shnatsel said it's a poor copy of the dock, but I personally differentiate
> between "foreground" applications that are part of my current workflow
> (be it programming, fooling around or preparing lectures) with
> "background" applications that run indepedently of which workflow I'm
> currently on.
>
> I like to include the former on the dock, but not the latter. Background
> apps in the dock clutter it, making task switching harder and slower.
> Also, badges in the middle of large colored icons are much less efficient
> in attracting my attention. Specially because dock icons are moving
> targets.
>
> All apps in my Messaging Menu use hide-on-close. I personally think the MM
> works very well with those. Unfortunately not all of them (ex: Thunderbird)
> do that by default and I need to either hack them or use extensions to
> allow them to do that. Which brings to my next point:
>
> 2) The difference between a concept inherent to the Messaging Menu
> and a specific application doing it wrong.
>
> I think the reputation of the MM was somewhat tarnished by applications
> that didn't use it properly (including Canonical-supported ones). Granted,
> libindicate is somewhat to blame for allowing those to happen in the
> first place, but sometimes it's worthy imagining what an application could
> do with the MM, instead of what it currently does.
>
> Satchitb mentioned that emails are less urgent than IMs. This is probably
> true in the general case, but when you use the TB integration for a long
> time, you notice that it's not as dumb as it seems at a first glance: it
> does
> not lit the envelop if the email was sent to a mailing list of you were
> just
> CCed. And does not change the MM at all if the message did not arrive
> in the main inbox. So this property plus a good combination of filters
> restrict the MM to alerting me when I received a direct, personal email.
> And I can't be the only one who once had a boss who used emails for
> instant communication simply because he never bothered to learn
> something else, for example.
>
> Also worth mentioning is that several app developers do not bother to
> implement little details that make MM integration much more usable,
> such as unliting the envelope when the proper window/tab is focused
> like Empathy does.
>
> Cheers,
> -c
>
>
> Em 29-08-2012 13:41, Daniel Foré escreveu:
>
>  Hey guys,
>>
>> Just a quick question: does anyone use the messaging menu? If so, what
>> for?
>>
>> If not, should we consider not shipping it?
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Daniel Foré
>>
>
>
> --
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~**elementary-dev-community<https://launchpad.net/~elementary-dev-community>
> Post to     : elementary-dev-community@**lists.launchpad.net<elementary-dev-community@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~**elementary-dev-community<https://launchpad.net/~elementary-dev-community>
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/**ListHelp<https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp>
>

References