Why and why.

[Christopher Lees]

On Sat, 2010-05-01 at 12:00 +0100, George Farris wrote:

> > Wait just a bit. The problem is that the notification area is a poor
> > replacement of the window list. Instead of big strips with an icon and
> > a title, it's just a tiny icon. And that icon even has arbitrary
> > behavior. The idea is to get rid of the notification area *and* to
> > reintroduce the removed features in the window list, application
> > indicator, or any other place where it is actually appropriate.
> 
> Well then IMHO it should probably have been left at the old behavior
> until it was ready.  Why totally mess people up with something they have
> been doing for "years"?  It seems an odd and very broken decision
> process.  Just sayin!

Ubuntu does things by a process of evolution, not revolution. If they'd
not introduced Indicator Applet until it was a finished design, then it
would have probably been incredibly buggy and unusable for everyone
except the developer. The way it's been done has ensured that bugs get
fixed the whole while by community testing.

Indicator Applet is more consistent and less broken than the
Notification Area. With the NA, for every new program you have to learn
exactly how it treats its NA icon; what middle-clicks do, what
right-clicks do, what left-clicks do. Indicator Applet icons are at
least easier to learn as all their options are exposed through a
left-click.