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Re: Farewell to the notification area

 

On 14 June 2010 08:31, Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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> Scott Ritchie wrote on 23/04/10 06:48:
> >
> > I like where you're going, but what do we do about interoperability?
> >
> > There's a hint in your post that we'll simply leave apps broken, stick
> > up our middle fingers, and tempt developers with our millions of users.
> > That may work for open source projects in our repository, but we need
> > to accept the reality that there will be programs that don't conform.
> >
> > The most obvious example is any software originally written for Windows
> > and running in Wine.  Wine uses XEmbed to create its own systray, and
> > the most reasonable place to put Wine's system tray is the notification
> > area.
> >...
>
> You mentioned at UDS that before Wine began inserting notification area
> items into the Gnome notification area, it put them in a separate
> window. I suggest that it return to doing that. Java applications will
> be in the same situation.
>
>
Hi Matthew,

A massive portion of Ubuntu users use Wine or Java apps to some degree. If
we are trying to improve usability, how would relegating
non-application-indicator-conforming apps to floating windows improve a
user's experience compared to the current situation of having the (empty
most of the time) old style notification area alongside the
indicator-applet?

I'm all for moving as many apps as possible to application indicators, but I
can't see a better solution than leaving the notification area applet there.
A Wine indicator applet would be nice, but Windows applications simply
listen out for mouse click messages and do whatever they want when they
receive them, so it's just not possible to do it in a way that would work
consistently.

That said, if there was a Windows version of the indicator applet and
libraries, we might see some applications move to it - you never know :)

Luke.

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