Over on planet.gnome.org, Ted Gould blogs about how the current system tray protocol sucks. I've written about the systray recently, but I started writing about how much it sucks 5 years ago. I wrote about it in a number of places, and sent mails to the xdg list.
Of course, I was always busy with one more thing and nobody else really seemed to care. In fact, some told me I was being silly and the current system was just fine. I wonder if those people even remember. =)
In any case, it seems like hell is finally freezing over: we have a system tray widget in 4.2 that is built for multiple backends (and already has a couple) so that we can freely mix and match old with new as a realistic path forward, and people in other projects are talking about doing actual work in the same area too.
Hopefully Ted isn't going to make the same mistake I did, which is to realize the error of our ways then not actually do anything about it for a couple years because there are so many other pressing things to do. ;)
I also hope that in their thinking about these things that as they move to implementation that they keep us (the F/OSS desktop world) information and even share their plans as they go forward. I personally plan on sending something to freedesktop.org once we have something we can show works reasonably.
Yes indeed ... I think the Devil be shaking, and it ain't out of fear.
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5 comments:
seven shades of awesome with cherries on top!
Have you been in contact with the fellow? It would be great if a new protocol came into being that is pleasing to all the free desktops.
I think the same thing has been discussed (at length) on the E17 dev lists. IIRC Raster even talked about working on a new spec himself.
Looks like a real cross-desktop team is shaping up :)
@Martin
Do you have a Link to the Mail?
Ah, this might be good thing.
Someway I do not like the systray at all. Just like you Aaron wrote few months ago about the what is the idea of systray.
I remember always the first KDE4 mockup what I saw when there star to come the ideas for it. Years ago. http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/Kde4+Mockup?content=28476
http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/KDE+Extender+Mockup?content=30012
It was same as these but from systray idea. The systray made a "hole" to panel and icons were on that "hole". When something needed and attention, it was jumping up and down from that "hole". The icon could get different colored background too... hopefully someone remembers what it was. I just did go trought all KDE4 brainstorms ideas on the kde-look.org, it was one of the firsts there.
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