Messaging Indicator (was: Notifications: uselessness of)

[Dylan McCall]

> When Pidgin isn't focused and you receive a message, after the notification
> disappears, it should be stored in there.  Evolution new mail updates should
> move to there as well.
>
> And pffft....at least *you* get an envelope.  I get "No notifications"
> written
> across my panel.
>
> --
> Mackenzie Morgan

I must say, after playing with Jaunty for longer now, I've gone back
to really not understanding what is different with the message
indicator and the notification area with regards to passing messages
to the user. They're both doing EXACTLY the same thing except one is a
menu and the other a list of buttons.

Wouldn't it be less work overall, and considerably more flexible, to
move the static (and generally unchanged by the user) "hardware
status" type applets out of the notification area and into a special
applet? That way the notification area itself becomes, like
notify-osd, more "pure" an interface for notifications alone.

As is, I feel this is simply a redundant chunk of interface and will
create all sorts of maintenance issues in the future. By blending with
the notification area, this doesn't even come close to fixing the
problem it's meant to solve since, to a casual user, this is still
(arbitrarily) in the same place as the volume control, bluetooth
status and network connection. Bizarre.