[ubuntu-art] next meeting

[Jan Niklas Hasse]

>
> Keeping open apps in the system tray (with that do you mean notification
> area, top panel right, really?) is one of the _worst_ desktop metaphors.
> Notification area is... notification area!
>

I call it tray. IMHO calling the tray "notification area" is one of the
worst things.


> Why mixing open apps with notification icons like clock, wifi, volume...?
>

Clock? Volume? I got these as gnome applets. And wifi: Do you think the
"NetworkManager" is a notification? It isn't. But why is it in the
"notification" area?
I got 4 icons in my tray: Skype, Pidgin, Rhythmbox, Glipper (and
NetworkManager). There isn't a single notification.


> I think that this ideas comes from a very _very_ strong Windows culture.
>

So what?


> And Ubuntu is not an should not be a clon of Windows XP (OS X clon
> either).
>

Right, but do you also want to remove windows at all, just because osx and
xp use them?


> If Windows or Mac does something well, we can discuss it and if it's a
> good idea we can implement it. But we don't have to copy something because
> new users would feel familiar with Ubuntu desktop, that would be a big
> mistake.
>

AFAIK there's no option to close programs to tray, except the application
supports this. So there's nothing to be copied from windows.


> Taking back the discussion. 6 or 7 years ago I was a convinced Windows
> 98/XP user. I loved Winamp, I loved Winamp icon in the tray bar. Nowadays, a
> lot of Windows applications put their icon in the system tray.
>

A lot of Linux applications, too. (Rhythmbox, banshee, amarok, pidgin,
skype, networkmanager, deluge, ...)


> Nowadays I've studied computer science and gui design in my career. One of
> the big mistakes of user interfaces is mixing things that are completely not
> related. Notification is not related with open apps.
>

Well, maybe we should call it tray or Status Area?


> What Dylan McCall was trying to say is that in OS X there is a tree
> structure in the gui design. Root node is the application and then each
> application has several childrens (windows) and each window can have another
> children (floating window). In my opinion this is the correct way to
> represent open apps. Why? because the app "pipe" is:
>
> Processes -> Windows -> Secondary windows
>
>
> This pipe design delivers a good design that solves several gui problems.
> First problem solved is that window selector like Windows bar is no longer
> needed. Instead, this model has app selector, wich is very useful if some
> apps have several windows (think in The Gimp at this moment). Second problem
> is that having app selector instead window selector is better if you have a
> lot (6 or more) windows opened. It's even easier to distinguish what do you
> want to select because you have to look directly for the application, not to
> all the windows, and you have less items to look for so you can search it
> quickly. Third problem solved is that now app selector and app launcher can
> be merged so many space can be saved.


App selector? Sounds like some kind of a tray, only better.
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