elementary-dev-community team mailing list archive

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

Any objections on this? It's about time to voice them.

If not, this should be added to the relevant HIG article,
http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines/user-workflow/background-tasks

2013/3/22 Nishant George Agrwal <nishantagrwal12993@xxxxxxxxx>

> Okay, so the thread about Noise not complying to the HIG turned into quite
> a general discussion about the HIG and background application behaviour so
> I am creating this new thread with a better title to continue it. Here's a
> link to the old thread:
> https://lists.launchpad.net/elementary-dev-community/msg02046.html
>
> Summing up, we need to think about proper ways to create and deal with
> background applications, i.e, applications that don't require interaction
> with the user for most or a big part of the time they are running, like
> mail clients, IM clients, music players, microblogging apps, etc.
> Typically, these apps don't fit well into any one task the user is
> performing, so it often doesn't make sense for these applications to be
> bound to a particular workspace either.
>
> To this end, applications are to intelligently handle closing the window
> to do whatever best suits the situation. The following could be guidelines
> to what the app must do (this deals with the user-facing elements, not the
> implementation)
>
> "If you'd check a specific application frequently but not in reaction to
> notifications it raises (e.g. group chat, even if you weren't pinged
> directly) or if it has to be accessible as quickly as possible while it's
> running (e.g. music player, to pause music), the app should display an icon
> in the dock while it's running.
> If the app is primarily brought up in reaction to a notification and if
> the state of the app doesn't significantly affect its usage frequency (e.g.
> microblogging client - if the user tweets often they'd pin it to dock
> anyway), it should display an icon in the dock only when there are
> unattended action items (e.g. new messages) along with the action item
> count in the dock badge."
>
> As far as implementation goes, this branch was recently merged into plank,
> which enables preliminary support for batches and progress bars without the
> need for an open window.
> https://code.launchpad.net/~ricotz/plank/launcherentry-items
> For hiding the window while keeping the dock icon visible, one solution
> would be to make better use of minimize. The following blueprint would need
> to be implemented:
> https://blueprints.launchpad.net/gala/+spec/minimized-as-closed
>
> That's all folks.
>
>
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>


-- 
Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff
OS architect @ elementary