On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 2:24 PM, Florian Max <florian.muell...@gmail.com> wrote: > The "specific API" used by GNOME Shell is called libnotify, which was > already used in GNOME 2. Ubuntu uses it for its notify-osd, and apparently > it is also supported in KDE[0]. The support for status icons is considered > legacy, its use is highly discouraged (and so would be the use of the > KDE/Canonical replacement if support is added) - the message tray is a place > to notify users about a particular event, not a taskbar replacement for > applications.
As far as I know, libnotify supports only notifications (and does it well). They can vanish after a while or require acknowledgement, but they can not be truly persistent. The notification area was used both for such notifications and to provide a way to interact with "background" applications. I do like the notification part in gnome-shell (beside the integrated chat stealing focus, but all it needs is tweaking), I was talking about the "interact with background application" part: I thought gnome-shell also had an API for this as the indicators proposed by canonical have been rejected. From a user point of view, the system area in gnome-shell is very similar. What I do not know is wether it is it limited to the shell and extensions, or if any application can add something as well. If it can be extended, which protocol does it use? If it can not be extended, does it mean that some other solution exists (now or as plan) or that the shell will NOT allow this? Maybe the notification tray is not the right place for this, but the protocol used for the indicators is just a protocol, the shell can the choose where these things are placed, hide some of them, show them in the overview or whatever feels right to the designers. Maybe the protocol should be extended to add hints allowing better placement I do think that canonical did a nice work trying to build generic GUI for common use case (instant messaging and music players) and allow any application to make its own actions available in a flexible and themable manner. It is true that many applications abuse this, and I think unity should show many of them into jumplists in the dock, but this is not an option for gnome-shell which does not have a taskbar at all. Note: I do not want to open a gnome-shell vs unity flamewar, I love and hate them both, I would just like to see more cross-desktop work, which gnome has always been very good at. Obviously, this requires time and open discussions. Canonical has not been good enough on this side, and the existing protocol may need a lot more work before it can be seriously considered in gnome, but it does solve existing problem for me. Regards. -- Aurélien Naldi _______________________________________________ gnome-shell-list mailing list gnome-shell-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list