Announcing ConnMan.net

That's only if you want to implement user-specific connections like the applet does, which are completely optional. If you simply want to use system connections, which are handled entirely by NetworkManager, then you don't need to be a service on the bus at all. That's 66% of what nm-applet is doing; if you strip that out, it's really just some dbus calls and a GtkMenu. I should really write a minimal client just to dispel this sort of FUD.

I'm curious about the "boring work" you refer to. Using a library that makes it easy for you like libnm-glib, or by using python, it's pretty darn easy. But for a UI to be usable, you still need to ensure that you don't show the user things which aren't applicable to their situation, do proper error checking and notification, handle device removal and insertion, device status changes, etc.

I think you're expecting the problem to be simple, but it's not, and that's not NetworkManager's fault.