elementary-dev-community team mailing list archive

["Sergey \"Shnatsel\" Davidoff" <sergey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

2013/3/16 Daniel Fore <daniel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

> So, we should now have solved the problem of showing badges or
> progressbars when there are no windows open.
>

Only if the app is pinned to the dock. The other report still stands:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/plank/+bug/1155790


> So the remaining issue seems to be: If an app can be run in the
> background, should it's icon be present in the dock while it's running?
>
> Personally, I don't think that's entirely necessary. But I guess that
> depends on what your main use for the dock is.
>

Last time I checked the dock existed to make accessing a subset of
available applications faster, either by user preference (pinned apps) or
contextually (apps that are currently running, i.e. the ones the user is
interacting with at the moment).

Noise is a highly contextual app during playback. It should be easily
accessible so that you can pause playback or view song lyrics effortlessly.

Email, IM, VoIP and social network clients don't seem anywhere that
contextual to me. Each of them enables yet another means of communication;
having one running is like having your mobile phone turned on. I don't
think it's a good idea to display them all in the dock while you're online.*

So I believe it really depends on the app. If it has to be easier to access
while it's running (e.g. Noise), it should display an icon in the dock.
Otherwise the regular means of bringing it up are fine. If the user needs
to access them quickly every time, they'll probably pin it to the dock
anyway.
This also explains showing apps with new action items in the dock. E.g. for
email client, if you don't text people by yourself often, you don't need
its icon in the dock. And if you do, you already have it pinned. But you
should be able to access the IM client as effortlessly as possible if
somebody pinged you regardless of your regular usage pattern.
Can we get this polished and written down to HIG as a rule of thumb?

*IMO it would make much more sense to indicate and set the status for all
means of communication at once via Wingpanel indicator, as Maemo and Ubuntu
Maverick used to do until this dreadful "messaging menu" thing appeared.

-- 
Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff
OS architect @ elementary