unity-design team mailing list archive

[James Putt <putt.james@xxxxxxxxx>]

Would it help to make a deliberate distinction between the service and
management facilities an app provides? The common examples seem to be
mail, music, IM, gwibber, and downloads may make a good fit also. So
in each case I want my service (emails receiving, music playing, being
available online) but I don't necessarily want the finer management
provided by the respective app.

The system/category indicators already help in this to an extent. The
interaction could still be improved, for instance, when I want to
appear online. At the moment I can't do this strictly from the
me-menu, I need to first open Empathy (which, minus the functionality
of the me-menu, is only a contact list). Similarly for music, I need
to first open Rhythmbox before I can control playing music without
opening Rhythmbox(!). If services were standalone from their apps, and
could be controlled via respective indicators, I would only need my
app window open for deeper access/management (organising email, making
new playlists, etc).

The problem of distinguishing between minimise and minimise to tray is
still there, but in the form of how is the user informed which apps
complement services (and wont stop the service by being closed). Not
all services (eg email, gwibber) are currently controllable from their
indicators (besides starting the service by opening it's app), but
then, perhaps it doesn't make sense to be able to turn off eg
receiving email.

James