Day: Status Icons and GNOME [LWN.net]

Allan Day shares some welcome news about the GNOME status icon tray. "GNOME 3 currently shows status icons in the bottom-left corner of the screen, in a tray that slides in and out. We know that this isn’t a good solution. The tray gets in the way and it generally feels quite awkward. There’s a general consensus that we don’t want to continue with this UI for the upcoming version of GNOME 3."

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Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 1, 2017 17:48 UTC (Fri) by nickbp (guest, #63605) [Link] (10 responses)

Spoiler: The solution is to continue digging their heads in the sand and ignore the problem by just not showing them at all

From GNOME 3.26, we are therefore planning not to show status icons in GNOME Shell by default. We feel that, long-term, this change will enable us to provide a better experience for our users (I’ll go into some detail about this in the rest of the post). We also feel that the consequences of the change won’t be as dramatic as they would have been in the past. [...] If you want or need to continue using status icons, you should feel free to use the TopIcons GNOME Shell extension.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 1, 2017 19:13 UTC (Fri) by k3ninho (subscriber, #50375) [Link] (9 responses)

> If you want or need to continue using status icons, you should feel free to use the TopIcons GNOME Shell extension.

Why not swallow TopIcons wholesale into GNOME main? Are the licences incompatible?!?

K3n.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 7:53 UTC (Sat) by Sylos (guest, #109852) [Link] (8 responses)

GNOME's initial behaviour was what TopIcons implements. So, TopIcons isn't some revolutionary technological advancement that the GNOME devs haven't yet figured out, it just reverses a conscious design decision from the GNOME devs.
In other words, they have no interest in including TopIcons. They're knowingly breaking an age-old paradigm without replacement. Some software you'll just not anymore be able to use on GNOME unless you have TopIcons installed.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 15:56 UTC (Sat) by adam820 (subscriber, #101353) [Link] (7 responses)

Including TopIcons is antithetical to the whole point of eliminating tray icons entirely, which is what this explains. However, you're also given the freedom of using it if you so want it. It's not about them just throwing a dart and removing the topic lands on, but the fact that almost nobody uses them.

> Having reviewed how applications are using status icons, we are confident that the majority of applications that use status icons will not be impacted by the decision not to display them by default. In many cases applications won’t have to make any changes, and if changes are required we have hopefully contacted you already.

It's possible that they're already working with the upstream applications that you're already deemed impossible to work with, and fixes will be provided. And if not, please take the initiative of getting in touch with someone and letting them know of your concern about X, Y, or Z applications.

For some reason, if Apple were to up and remove the system tray in their next macOS update, it would be lauded as "brave, bold, and forward-thinking", but even a well-written and clearly-explained article isn't enough to stop the dog pile for G3.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 19:37 UTC (Sat) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (6 responses)

Well, here's the thing: the current status icons were anything but forward thinking, and just deleting them isn't forward thinking either. It's wishful thinking, and requires users and 3rd party developers to pick up the slack.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 20:49 UTC (Sat) by ken (subscriber, #625) [Link]

I's really disturbing that removing it is even considered to be an option :(.

I would love to hear what dropbox response was when they got contacted about the removal of the api.

------
Thanks for the extra work, we were just piking navel lint here anyway.
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Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 20:53 UTC (Sat) by sramkrishna (subscriber, #72628) [Link] (4 responses)

Think of it more like changing developer behavior. The notification spec was being abused as they were not used for notifications but for anything the developer wished. So with GNOME there are two notification systems, the one built by GNOME and this other one that is the wild west with developers using whatever. There is also the fact that you only have limited screen space for these areas and once you've exhausted it anything extra would need to be hidden defeating the purpose in the first place.

GNOME wants consistent behavior across the stack. Consolidating to a single notification system that is also cross desktop and re-educating developers to use it is the goal. Of course there are legacy software that is going to keep using it and that is where TopIcons comes in to provide that experience, and arguably a better experience. While such things will cause temporary pain, once apps port over to the new system things will look a lot better.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 3, 2017 4:02 UTC (Sun) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

After being years in all sorts of temporary pains that never end, I just quit the Linux desktop for a Mac for my main laptop.

I still have to struggle through Gnome's tantrums at work, though. I deeply resent your attitude towards users as a result.

I know that if I treated my users the same way then my company would have gone bankrupt long ago.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 4, 2017 8:53 UTC (Mon) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

I got a Mac laptop for work. I ended up putting Debian into a Virtualbox and run Xfce on that. I also ended up getting a PC keyboard and mouse - the Mac laptop was missing some keys like PageUp/PageDown and just couldn't get a working Hunglish keyboard layout there.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 3, 2017 5:13 UTC (Sun) by ErikF (subscriber, #118131) [Link] (1 responses)

The problem I have with GNOME tossing notification icons completely is that they are used by software developed for KDE (and also older GNOME-targetted apps.) It's great to force developers to the new improved paradigm for your framework, but the Linux desktop ecosystem is so fragmented IMO that you break apps for users unless they run an extension. Extensions are wonderful, but unless they are guaranteed to be supported for the long term, can users rely on the extension working correctly (or at all) in a year?

If in the future GNOME is able to achieve near-universality then maybe breaking compatibility can be done. Until then, I'd rather have notification icons as a supported feature that works half-decently, even if it's disabled by default.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 3, 2017 17:38 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

The problem with "near universality" is "you can't please everyone all the time".

I won't go *near* Gnome. Just my personal preference, you can do what you like, but if you put Gnome on my personal machine you'll get shot ... :-)

MS forced everyone down the MS route ... it's AWFUL and although there are linatics who think that's a good idea, trust me, it's NOT.

Cheers,
Wol

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 1, 2017 19:11 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (48 responses)

LOL. :facepalm:

I started reading fully expecting that if a GNOME blog post starts with something like: "We know that this isn’t a good solution. The tray gets in the way and it generally feels quite awkward", then it will end in removing this "something" by the end of the post. I was not surprised at all this time.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 1, 2017 21:04 UTC (Fri) by johncktx (guest, #113610) [Link] (18 responses)

One would think if they recognize when something isn't a good solution and their general attitude is to remove such things, that the entire Gnome 3 branch would be removed so they could return to developing Gnome 2.

Gnome can't be taken seriously at all these days. Hopefully Gnome 3 stops its charade soon and, as gracefully as they can muster, just wind the failed project down and use it as a teaching method for how not to develop a desktop and/or respond to criticism. I once thought it might be able to be salvaged, but those days are long since gone.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 22:27 UTC (Sat) by sramkrishna (subscriber, #72628) [Link] (16 responses)

I don't know by what measure you believe that GNOME has failed as a project since it is the default in most distros. There are other desktops that use the GNOME stack. More than that, we have lead the cultural change of adding designers to free software software model for consistent look at feel. I am proud of these achievements.

GNOME doesn't believe in sacred cows, and yes, the work we do can be disruptive culturally. It's why I stay on this project for nearly 20 years and enjoy being part of the GNOME community as there is always fresh ideas to work on.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 3, 2017 0:00 UTC (Sun) by dirtyepic (guest, #30178) [Link] (8 responses)

As a desktop it's not your job to be culturally disruptive. It's your job to be a stable platform for third-party applications to run on.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 3, 2017 1:38 UTC (Sun) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (2 responses)

By your logic, we should all be using CDE..

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 4, 2017 2:45 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

You think it must be one or the other? There's no middle ground?

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 8, 2017 1:40 UTC (Fri) by efitton (guest, #93063) [Link]

I wonder where we would be if we had had twenty four years of incremental improvement to CDE. Especially with the ability to take ideas that had proven successful from experimental/other desktops. I'm guessing we would be much further along than the constant rewrites and re-imaginings of desktops that market themselves as for the mainstream while simultaneously claiming to be experimental and disruptive.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 12:51 UTC (Wed) by jani (subscriber, #74547) [Link] (4 responses)

"As an X it's not your job to be Y. It's your job to be Z."

Since when has it been okay to tell people what to do, unless you're paying them to do what you want?

The GNOME folks seem to have strong opinions about where they want to take the project, and aren't afraid to make it happen, even if the changes are disruptive. The world is full of projects like that, open source or not. Arguably you need people and projects with strong vision to improve the way we work. Indeed some of the more interesting and disruptive projects are lead by rather opinionated people. (Intentionally not naming any.) Some of the disruptive changes are going to make some users unhappy.

But the people doing the work are free to do so.

You are free to move on to something else. You are free to start or fork or contribute to a desktop environment project with a kernel-like no regressions policy.

Of course, there's also the option of complaining about the state of GNOME 3 on LWN, but isn't that subject growing a tad stale? GNOME 3 is something like six years old now, and there are no signs of it becoming irrelevant despite what you might think based on the comments on this article.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 16:58 UTC (Thu) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

>Since when has it been okay to tell people what to do, unless you're paying them to do what you want?

Let's rephrase that in gnomespeak[1], then:

“It's time to decide whether GNOME wants to be a useful desktop, a Linux desktop, or a GNOME desktop.”

[1]: https://trac.transmissionbt.com/ticket/3685

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 8, 2017 1:43 UTC (Fri) by efitton (guest, #93063) [Link] (2 responses)

If they want an experimental and disruptive desktop; more power to them. However, it then seems inappropriate to try and become the default desktop and market yourself for mainstream use. If you want to be the default, mainstream desktop then I absolutely agree with don't be disruptive.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 8, 2017 11:55 UTC (Fri) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (1 responses)

Distributions put GNOME as the default because of various reasons. Pretty much what we're doing resulted in GNOME being the default on various distributions. That quite conflicts with your notion.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 8, 2017 20:09 UTC (Fri) by efitton (guest, #93063) [Link]

I didn't even speculate on why GNOME is a default option on many distributions. If I did, it would probably be along the lines of poor choices by KDE, the prior popularity of GNOME 2 (inertia being a powerful force), and some peoples beliefs that version 3 must be better than version 2 because 3 > 2. I'd also speculate that the popularity of MINT is mostly because of Cinnamon and that GNOME Shell still seems less than universally loved.

What I meant to say:
1) At least some core GNOME members see GNOME as a place for experimental design. At least some core GNOME members see GNOME as culturally disruptive. This seems pretty well documented, although perhaps not the view of all core GNOME members.
2) At least some core GNOME members desire to see GNOME as a default or the default Desktop Environment. This also seems well documented.
3) My personal opinion (which might be a small minority opinion for all I know) is that trying for both an experimental desktop and being _the_ mainstream desktop is at best inconsiderate to users.

Obviously different people may have different opinions than me as to why GNOME is frequently a default and different people may have different opinions on the appropriateness of having an experimental and mainstream desktop.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 5, 2017 18:53 UTC (Tue) by bandrami (guest, #94229) [Link] (5 responses)

"since it is the default in most distros"

It's default in Fedora, RedHat, and their derivatives. Is it the default anywhere else? It's not default for Mint, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Arch, Slackware, Antergos, Manjaro, or Gentoo (to use distrowatch's hit counter as a proxy for userbase). It's one of four defaults for Debian. MATE, Unity, and Cinnamon (all of which are Gnome forks made by people who were unhappy with the direction Gnome has been going) seem to be doing a lot better than Gnome.

A decade ago, Gnome 2 really *was* the default in most distros, and Gnome 3 seems to have thrown that away.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 6:31 UTC (Wed) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link] (2 responses)

You do realise that Ubuntu just dropped Unity, do you?

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 9:48 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

Not just that, but Ubuntu was responsible for a considerable amount of Linux's desktop fragmentation by their forking of Gnome to create their soon-to-be-abandoned Unity desktop, well before Gnome 3 was released?

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 13:04 UTC (Wed) by bandrami (guest, #94229) [Link]

Bluntly, I believe Canonical when it ships and not before, at this point.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 9:54 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

> It's one of four defaults for Debian.

That made me snicker. Thanks.

> MATE, Unity, and Cinnamon (all of which are Gnome forks made by people who were unhappy with the direction Gnome has been going)

Of those, only MATE is a legitimate "fork".

Cinnamon is all Gnome3 under the hood, only using a different shell to provide a G2-like UI.

Unity was an originally an incompatible fork of prerelease-G3, because (officially) Canonical wasn't willing to wait for G3 to be finished, and because they had specific UI requirements in mind -- not because G3's direction was inherently wrong. Even today, it's far closer to G3 than Cinnamon is.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 3:07 UTC (Thu) by bandrami (guest, #94229) [Link]

> That made me snicker. Thanks.

I definitely enjoyed it, too.

That said: a decade ago, choosing "desktop system" in the Debian installer got you Gnome. Now it gets you a choice of Gnome, the old version of Gnome by another name, the new version of Gnome hacked up to look more like the old version of Gnome, or a desktop that is basically the old version of Gnome but with a much greater willingness to use external components.

Ubuntu coming back into the fold will be a big plus for Gnome, but I still am amazed at how much installbase the team has been willing to give up here.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 18:43 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Agreed, the GNOME project does appear to be optimized for developer happiness. They certainly do ensure there are always fresh ideas to work on!

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 3, 2017 16:30 UTC (Sun) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link]

Surely. We will all switch to the Unity 8, no?

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 1, 2017 21:31 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (2 responses)

I had to check twice that the article wasn't a beautifully written parody. The number of things he says with a straight face and then contradicts a few paragraphs later... It's really funny! Loved it.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 20:58 UTC (Sat) by sramkrishna (subscriber, #72628) [Link] (1 responses)

Example? Curious to see where the message has gone awry. I helped review the blog post before it went out.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 23:57 UTC (Sat) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Well, I'll try...

> Another key design principle for GNOME is to put the user in control.

I LOL'd. This article's whole apologetic tone is precisely because it's giving users the shaft. If the GNOME project wanted to put the user in control, it would would first implement (and test!) a solution so this long article wouldn't have to exist. It would just be an entry in the release notes.

> In the next release, we will be introducing a new integration API for file synchronisation apps

Except... the reason you need the API is in *this* release, isn't it? (or am I misunderstanding "next"? Think there'll be unforeseen delays?)

> In GNOME we have two closely related goals: to provide application developers with a clear vision of how apps should be built [that's often changing] and to provide users with a simple, easy to understand and logical experience [with lots of caveats and workarounds].

This section's goal of clear APIs is laudable, but its opening sentence just hangs out there like newspeak. It's at odds with its section and, really, the article as a whole.

(To be clear: I like change. Well-managed change is wonderful. Alas, "Yank it and write some wiki pages for 3rd party devs" is not well-managed change.)

> Many applications today use status icons as a notifications system, despite the existence of the official notifications API, for example.

This part is implying that a number of 3rd party developers are lazy or stupid. Dunno about that... Are you *sure* you understand why they've been reluctant to use the official notifications API?

> We also feel that the consequences of the change won’t be as dramatic as they would have been in the past.

Haha, the GNOME project has been pretty bad at judging how dramatic changes would be in the past, hasn't it? I wonder if things have improved any... (I'll take the under on this one. I predict that GNOME devs will be surprised at how many people are actually affected by this, and how difficult the workarounds described in this article will be in real life. But I do hope I'm wrong!)

> we have actually been using status icons as a crutch for far too long -- that they have been used to fill gaps in our APIs, gaps which are now thankfully getting filled...

Can you picture Allan Day as a physical therapist? He says to his patient on crutches: "You know what? We've been using this crutch far too long." YANK. CRASH. "Don't worry, you'll adjust soon. Most of your leg will heal in a year or two and the rest was obsolete so you won't need it anyway."

Maybe stabilize a solution first, _then_ delete the problem?

But no, alas. This article seems to say that the gameplan is to delete now, think later, and write lots of English to explain about how any pain is actually for the user's own good.

Which, when read in the right tone of voice, is very amusing!

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 17:35 UTC (Sat) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link] (24 responses)

So they know that it's not good — what are they using as a frame of reference for “good”? It isn't the solution that works for billions of people on a multitude of other DEs and OSes, because they're fleeing in the exact opposite direction. So is breaking things and giving the middle finger to interop standards good? It's hard to make sense out of this cult.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 5, 2017 9:09 UTC (Tue) by aigarius (subscriber, #7329) [Link] (23 responses)

It *does not* work for millions of people and they clearly describe how other platforms that try to keep such icons inevitably have to hide them again, destroying the whole purpose of the icons in the process.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 5, 2017 9:13 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (21 responses)

Icon tray works. You just need better ways to hide some of the unneeded icons. Windows got it right in Win XP, Mac OS X gets it right with additional software.

Heck, even Android now has an API to do persistent indicators.

Yet GNOME somehow got it totally wrong.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 5, 2017 14:22 UTC (Tue) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link] (20 responses)

Icon tray does not scale. Three icons give meaningful information at a glance. Five-seven icons might produce meaningful information at a glance. Anything more than that, and you end with a bunch of Blinkenlichten, just less useful than the original ones.

Add to this the fact, that many app developers consider status icons a way to enforce – and spread – the brand message, and that the icon images rarely follows design guidelines, and the thing becomes infuriating. (To wit: without bartender my work macbook has SIXTEEN status icons taking roughly one third of the top bar; of those I care only about three; four perhaps.)

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 5, 2017 14:23 UTC (Tue) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link]

*icon image rarely follows or *icon images rarely follow; grr.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 5, 2017 18:52 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (18 responses)

Well, screen space also doesn't scale. I can't display more than 20 applications at the same time. Let's remove all those pesky application windows and leave only the wallpaper and a nicely drawn "Shutdown" button.

I don't _want_ my icon tray to "scale". I'm fine with solution that allows me to have 2-5 indicators for applications chosen by me.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 9:46 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (17 responses)

>Well, screen space also doesn't scale. I can't display more than 20 applications at the same time.

And that's why virtual desktops were commonplace on X Windowing systems at least twenty years ago.

Gnome3 actually improves this paradigm with a dynamic stack-based approach.

> I don't _want_ my icon tray to "scale". I'm fine with solution that allows me to have 2-5 indicators for applications chosen by me.

That, by definition, is "scaling" compared to the overwhelming majority of desktops out there. (Note tha Linux is only a tiny fraction of those)

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 11:55 UTC (Wed) by ken (subscriber, #625) [Link] (14 responses)

> And that's why virtual desktops were commonplace on X Windowing systems at least twenty years ago.
> Gnome3 actually improves this paradigm with a dynamic stack-based approach.

the dynamic approach is not some sort of universal improvement. I have no idea what problem this solves and it makes using it a pain as you no longer can place windows in the workspace you want as that one may not exist yet.

and the decision to then only have worspaces on the primary display ??? unbelievable! I thought it was a bug until someone pointed out its was done on purpose.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 12:15 UTC (Wed) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link] (6 responses)

I always thought awesome's tag-based approach to virtual workspaces was pretty cool, clearly that isn't something that is going to be useful for non-technical people though. GNOME's implementation seems much more useful for them.

There is an extension for solving the primary display issue.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 20:51 UTC (Wed) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (5 responses)

While I appreciate the tag-based approach, it doesn't work for everyone. I use a fixed set of 9 workspaces (in XMonad) and have various amounts of monitors on my machines (1 for laptops, 2 at home, 3 at work). Generally, I have tmux on 1, browsers go from 9 on down, 5 is fixed, and temporary things grow from 2 on up. I then display 1, 9, and 5 on the three monitors up to the number of monitors. But this is why I use XMonad rather than any other window manager: I can make it do whatever I need it to do through a bit of code.

By the way, this works because my per-project workspaces tend to be realized through tmux sessions rather than X (or Wayland).

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 6:44 UTC (Thu) by karkhaz (subscriber, #99844) [Link] (4 responses)

Yeah, I keep wondering if/when tiling WMs are going to become more mainstream. Most of them solve _all_ the problems that _everyone_ in this thread is complaining about. But I suppose that folks in this thread already know/can find out how to fix these problems in GNOME, but are nevertheless complaining on behalf of less-competent users who would never change the defaults, so tiling window managers might not be so useful there either.

I have six monitors at work, and am using two of them for "per-project" workspaces that are chained together (i.e. when I press <Super-1>, one monitor jumps to workspace 1 and another jumps to workspace 11; <Super-2> changes to workspaces 2 and 12; etc). The other monitors either have a single workspace assigned to them, or (for my web browser monitor) I create and destroy workspaces dynamically. The workspaces on my browser monitor don't have a keyboard shortcut, since there are typically dozens of browser windows open that monitor (each on their own workspace), so I have a program that finds the titles of all of my browser windows, displays them in a dmenu, and whisks me to the workspace holding that browser window. Pure productivity bliss, not counting the millions of hours getting my setup to be this awesome. (Using the i3 window manager, but I'm sure any other tiling WM would work).

But the reason this works so well is that i3 has barely changed its default behaviour since the project started almost a decade ago. The project is mostly adding new features (like workspace saving and configuration options) and fixing bugs.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 7:05 UTC (Thu) by jem (subscriber, #24231) [Link] (3 responses)

> Yeah, I keep wondering if/when tiling WMs are going to become more mainstream. Most of them solve _all_ the problems that _everyone_ in this thread is complaining about.

Tiling window managers are not for everyone. If you value portability in a laptop, then you'll have to compromise on screen size. With a small screen you end up switching between full screen windows.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 9:48 UTC (Thu) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link] (1 responses)

Why choose one or another when you can have both in gnome-shell? :-)

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 9:59 UTC (Thu) by karkhaz (subscriber, #99844) [Link]

Or in i3 :) I do also have a tiny laptop (which looks hilarious next to my 6-monitor workstation) and use it mostly the way jem describes: one window per workspace, each one taking up the whole screen. But I do have uses for multiple small windows on one workspace, even with a tiny screen.

It's convenient for me because I can use almost all the same keybindings as on my workstation, although I do see that this is a less compelling argument for folks who only use a laptop---which seems to be more and more people nowadays.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 12:48 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

I've used this setup since early 2010 from an eeePC to the triple monitor workstation. But, the keybindings are also very custom, so using anything else usually forces me to a mouse for more than basic things anyways.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 12:37 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> the dynamic approach is not some sort of universal improvement. I have no idea what problem this solves and it makes using it a pain as you no longer can place windows in the workspace you want as that one may not exist yet.

The dynamic approach maps to the way I've always worked -- one desktop per active project. I'm immeasurably more productive with it as it maps to my mental model better than static workspaces. This isn't just my wearing rose-colored glasses either; I'm forced to use a G2-based system at $dayjob, and it's like night and day vs my G3-based personal laptop.

So while I'm not going to claim that the G3 approach is necessarily better for everyone -- yet, for many folks, the G3 approach is vastly superior. (And for those who don't like it, it can be disabled in favor of a static set)

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 13:33 UTC (Wed) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] (5 responses)

> and the decision to then only have worspaces on the primary display ??? unbelievable! I thought it was a bug until someone pointed out its was done on purpose.

On the contrary, that's one of the best features . I put a browser on the secondary (fixed) display and use the primary display workspaces for different types of work. These days you _always_ need a browser available and it's an incredible productivity-killer to have to jump back and forth between workspaces to use it. I can't work well without it anymore.

And of course, if you really don't want it you can disable it as has been pointed out: same with dynamic workspaces (I personally DO disable that and set a static number of workspaces).

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 15:46 UTC (Wed) by ken (subscriber, #625) [Link] (4 responses)

> On the contrary, that's one of the best features

no its not. its simply wrong. the correct way would be to have all display be part of the workspace and if you wanted to lock some application to be always visible on one display you would simply have an option in the window menu to set it to always display.

then you can have your way of working and everyone else has a sane default and most importantly no need to go in and change some global state for anybody.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 20:48 UTC (Wed) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

No, that's wrong too ;) . It's better to have N workspaces, each monitor displaying one of them. I never really liked the "all monitors change workspaces together" and I don't think I'd like the workspaces/fixed duality either.

Workspaces

Posted Sep 6, 2017 21:07 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

The nice thing is that, if you want that behavior in GNOME, it's a simple configuration tweak away. I agree that having only one display participate in workspaces is weird, but I am happy to flip a switch and get something more usable for me. Everybody should of course set their defaults in a way that pleases me, but I've long since given up on convincing the world of that.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 8, 2017 2:36 UTC (Fri) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] (1 responses)

> no its not. its simply wrong. the correct way would be to have all display be part of the workspace and if you wanted to lock some application to be always visible on one display you would simply have an option in the window menu to set it to always display.

No. That's clearly the wrong way to do it. The way GNOME 3 does it is definitely superior.

One of the reasons people don't use multiple workspaces is that it's annoying to have to switch around between workspaces to find things, for cut and paste etc. Having a screen locked means that if you want things to stay always visible you just move things to that screen. This is trivially easy to use and easy to understand for even the least experienced desktop user. You don't even need documentation: it's obvious how it works immediately.

GNOME _does_ have an option in the window menu to set the window to always display, but asking people to figure out how to do it then making them do it every time they open the window is too complicated and annoying. If you learn enough to figure out how to pin a window to the screen, then you're certainly capable of figuring out how to disable the locked screen feature if you don't want it.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 15, 2017 5:24 UTC (Fri) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

>The way GNOME 3 does it is definitely superior.
E17 got this (and so many other things) right, the right way: each screen has independent workspace layouts and switching.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 17:34 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

> And that's why virtual desktops were commonplace on X Windowing systems at least twenty years ago.
And that's why Windows added ability to hide tray icons. Duh.

> That, by definition, is "scaling" compared to the overwhelming majority of desktops out there. (Note tha Linux is only a tiny fraction of those)
Windows supports tray management SINCE FREAKING WINDOWS 2000!!

Every, literally, every other desktop has some kind of tray/menubar indicators: Mac OS X, Android, Windows, iOS (though it's restricted there). Yet GNOME in its great wisdom decided that users don't need them. Facepalm.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 19:36 UTC (Wed) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link]

Did I already mention the Bartender app? I think I did. That's how you solve the status icon problem on Mac.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 16:40 UTC (Thu) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

>It *does not* work for millions of people
Millions of people chose GNOME 3 because a standard feature of other platforms, that many apps expect to be there, is badly implemented and now due to be removed entirely? Somehow I doubt that.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 20:55 UTC (Sat) by sramkrishna (subscriber, #72628) [Link]

Most people have already switched to topicons for notification trays because the one that is built into GNOME isn't that great. In fact, I would say it actively hides the notification areas and has actually trained me to ignore them!

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 1, 2017 22:12 UTC (Fri) by adam820 (subscriber, #101353) [Link] (4 responses)

Yep, there are the chorus heads of "But-but-but they removed a thing!". However, as a GNOME3 daily driver, I can honestly say I've never given the status tray much of a look in the last few years, if ever. It could disappear tomorrow and I wouldn't notice. And for those that do use it, there are the existing extensions that re-enable the status bar if you want it, though based on the blog post it seems the general idea is to communicate with upstreams and migrate them away from using trayicons and move to using native DE integration where possible. So in the end, win/win for everyone. I don't see the big deal other than something to complain about, from people who probably don't even use G3 anyway.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 0:09 UTC (Sat) by hp (guest, #5220) [Link]

Agreed. I sometimes open the little bottom tray accidentally but couldn't even tell you what's in there!

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 8:24 UTC (Sat) by Sylos (guest, #109852) [Link] (1 responses)

That's a reason for it not necessarily being so bad that they do this, it's not a reason in favor of them doing this. While it might not affect you, this change makes many applications completely inaccessible.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 16:00 UTC (Sat) by adam820 (subscriber, #101353) [Link]

The comment above still stands. It doesn't affect me, no; it also doesn't seem to affect a lot of daily GNOME3 users. So, perhaps you're in the minority of people it would affect. And that's a little irritating, I'm sure, but it also mentions they're working with upstream applications. So maybe leave a comment on the blog post asking about whatever applications you're concerned with and find out if they're being addressed.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 22:00 UTC (Sat) by luto (subscriber, #39314) [Link]

The status tray (back when it worked well or with TopIcons) is by far my favorite UI for instant messages. A notification can appear in the tray telling me that there's an IM, but it's not disruptive to my workflow and it stays there until I deal with it. The current GNOME 3 status tray fails here because I won't ever notice the IM. The fancy "notifications" fail as well because they're way too disruptive.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 1, 2017 22:20 UTC (Fri) by patrick_g (subscriber, #44470) [Link] (11 responses)

How about pure system tray applets like Cryptkeeper? How are we supposed to use it if there is no more a system tray ?

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 1, 2017 22:23 UTC (Fri) by adam820 (subscriber, #101353) [Link] (9 responses)

TopIcons: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/495/topicons/

Maybe also drop them (G3 devs) a line and point them at this application as one that needs better system integration.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 9:36 UTC (Sat) by juliank (guest, #45896) [Link] (4 responses)

It just does not work in 3.26

gnome-shell[9055]: JS ERROR: TypeError: notificationDaemon._trayManager is undefined moveToTop@/home/jak/.local/share/gnomeshell/extensions/topIcons@adel.gadllah@gmail.com/extension.js:121:5

Neither does TopIcons Plus.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 20:47 UTC (Sat) by jbicha (subscriber, #75043) [Link] (2 responses)

You use Debian right? Have you tried the gnome-shell-extension-top-icons-plus uploaded yesterday to unstable?

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 21:00 UTC (Sat) by juliank (guest, #45896) [Link] (1 responses)

Oh, you already uploaded i :) I installed from git today to fix it, after trying the extension web page... Took some time to figure out

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 21:14 UTC (Sat) by jbicha (subscriber, #75043) [Link]

(I wasn't the uploader.) 🙂

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 22:30 UTC (Sat) by sramkrishna (subscriber, #72628) [Link]

Yes, it doesnt work in 3.26 yet because one of the things Topicons does is remove the existing status tray and since it was removed in 3.26 it breaks. This is true for Topicons Plus. We have provided a patch to Topicons and have alerted the maintainer who will integrate it.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 21:29 UTC (Sat) by ken (subscriber, #625) [Link] (2 responses)

Tried TopIcons but the only thing I managed to do was removing the status icons completely:(
now I can not get it back at all and I really used the dropbox icon :(

not sure what to do now.

At least after a restart of the computer the workspace grid now started to actually work. Well sort of work It still only managed one of the displays the other one is static.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 22:32 UTC (Sat) by sramkrishna (subscriber, #72628) [Link] (1 responses)

Maybe disabling all the extensions and then putting them back one by one. If you go to GNOME Tweaks, you can disable them.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 22:43 UTC (Sat) by ken (subscriber, #625) [Link]

That was the first thing I did. Think Ubuntu updated gnome shell to the new version so now after reboot I run the version where the functionality is already removed .

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 4, 2017 7:51 UTC (Mon) by patrick_g (subscriber, #44470) [Link]

> Maybe also drop them (G3 devs) a line and point them at this application as one that needs better system integration.

I sent a comment on the Allan Day blogpost to alert about the Cryptkeeper applet.
3 days after, this comment is still not published.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 20:15 UTC (Sat) by ocrete (subscriber, #107180) [Link]

The idea is that they should move to use a better mechanism. Either have a window (even if they have a service running when the window is closed), or they could use libcloudprovider if that is appropriate.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 6:08 UTC (Sat) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (3 responses)

It's a good move, actually. I never understood what that thing was supposed to do anyway and why was it away from all the other interesting stuff (i.e. top panel).

As a 10+ hours per day user of Gnome, I sure won't miss it.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 7:01 UTC (Sat) by xtifr (guest, #143) [Link]

At first I thought they were talking about the notification system, and I was about to have a heart attack. But yeah, that stupid tray thing--I think I've seen it in operation once, and it didn't help anything. I'd almost forgotten that it existed. I'm not going to miss it one bit.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 8:21 UTC (Sat) by Sylos (guest, #109852) [Link] (1 responses)

That stupid separate tray existed in the first place, because the GNOME devs beforehand decided that these application status icons should be moved out from the systray. And this change isn't them moving these application status icons back into the systray, they're just not showing them anywhere anymore, so there's now various applications that are completely inaccessible under GNOME.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 19:43 UTC (Wed) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link]

Not really. If you need this feature, there's a documented way to have it. If you don't, then you don't.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 8:26 UTC (Sat) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link] (9 responses)

I suspect this means breaking the default experience with Skype, Dropbox, Telegram, Nextcloud, Jitsi, Blink, Owncloud, Pidgin, many clipboard managers, some highly specialized commercial products (EDA, etc) and a few other things that do not come to my mind right now.

This also means that the developers of these things will need to implement a new Gnome way of doing things either dismissing the old one (i.e., forcing the change onto the users of other desktops too) or supporting both. As if the linux desktop was not fragmented enough.

Seen some of this when KDE dropped the xembed protocol for the system tray and then went back to provide the xembedsniproxy.

Hope that Ubuntu with its new gnome interface is going to stick with the indicators.

Also wonder why there is this common conception that once the weather indicator works, nothing else matters.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 17:53 UTC (Sat) by patrakov (subscriber, #97174) [Link] (1 responses)

At least with Pidgin, the experience is not actually broken. You can always alt-tab to its window. And the fact that there is a message that needs your attention is well communicated in another way.

Where Allan's theory of "we can talk to upstream" breaks is not open-source Linux apps, but Windows apps that the user attempts to run via Wine. Their authors just don't care.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 22:34 UTC (Sat) by sramkrishna (subscriber, #72628) [Link]

Yeah. For that, it's better to just use TopIcons.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 20:19 UTC (Sat) by ocrete (subscriber, #107180) [Link] (3 responses)

At least Nextcloud is already working on implementing libcloudproviders, I expect other similar apps will follow. As for IM apps (Skype, Jitsi, Telegram, Empathy, etc). They can either keep their main window around or keep running even when the window is closed and just send notifications, this is how all mobile IM apps work, you don't need a status icon to know if it's running or not.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 4, 2017 11:11 UTC (Mon) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link]

> They can either keep their main window around or keep running even when the window is closed and just send notifications, this is how all mobile IM apps work, you don't need a status icon to know if it's running or not

I tend to disagree here. The status icon is generally not for checking whether the application is running or not (even if this too can be handy), but for: (i) recalling if you have configured yourself as contactable or non-contactable in the application; and (ii) initiating calls. Keeping the whole main window open for the latter task messes the desktop for no reason.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 18:00 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (1 responses)

> you don't need a status icon to know if it's running or not.

I think its more user-friendly if there is some obvious user-visible place that shows these background processes. Take a look at the new design standards for Android 8 Oreo and how they require a user-visible notification line if you are going to run in the background, so the user can make informed decisions and is aware of the state of their system.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Dec 18, 2017 22:43 UTC (Mon) by immibis (subscriber, #105511) [Link]

I believe this has been an Android requirement for quite some time. Even back in 2.2 Froyo, your app was likely to be randomly terminated unless you created a special notification icon that says it's running in the background.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 3, 2017 19:51 UTC (Sun) by CycoJ (guest, #70454) [Link] (2 responses)

I find it ironic that the same people complaining about the "dumbing down of the user experience" and "catering to the touch screen" are the ones screaming for some of the most "dumb" user interfaces, which clearly cater to the "I can only click on things crowd". I'm not a gnome user, but the reason for 99.9% of systray apps seems to come from a windows world of where every service needs an item that the user can click on. Unix has had daemons which perform pretty much the same tasks (only as system user) as many of these systray apps.

I never understood why things like dropbox, nextcloud ... need a freaking systray item, what information does it actually convey?! I've "mounted" (instead of properly mounting it), the drive? Similar to all the messaging apps, why do I need to see the status of each of these apps (instead of just going to the virtual desktop where it's open). Two of my favourites atm are davmail and keepass2, the only info that the davmail icon gives me is, that yes when I switch off networking I can't connect to the server anymore ...duh! Keepass2 is similar, the only thing it tells me is that keepass is running and if it's locked. I always notice if I try to get a password and the db is locked, so what is the information that is being conveyed here?

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 3, 2017 23:29 UTC (Sun) by mcortese (guest, #52099) [Link] (1 responses)

Sure, some apps' status icons are pretty useless. But some do convey information, and when they do, they express a status, something that is not captured by the notification system which is for events. For instance, I agree that keepass2's status icon is stupid and serves no other purpose than taking up space. On the other hand, I find it a good idea for IM programs to show an icon with busy/away/dnd/... and to allow me to change it on the fly.

Getting rid of the whole concept (or hiding it behind an opt-in extension) just because some apps use it badly is like throwing away the proverbial baby.

A better option would be to let me choose which icons I want and which I don't. The ones I want shall go to the top-right corner, because that's where my eyes are trained to go to when I think about status (and no, I don't buy this thing about not mixing system and non-system icons, lest poor users get confused; if you really need to stress such distinction, a spacer or a vertical bar is enough).

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 5, 2017 12:50 UTC (Tue) by niner (guest, #26151) [Link]

FWIW your suggested solution is exactly what KDE Plasma allows you to have.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 16:25 UTC (Sat) by drreagan (guest, #118360) [Link] (6 responses)

CENSORED: This comment was DELETED in an act of CENSORSHIP by CORBET. CORBET is running an UN-AMERICAN CENSORSHIP website, in violation of FREE SPEECH and the FIRST AMENDMENT!

The entire Gnome 3 project gets in the way and generally feels quite awkward. As a Computer Scientist, I know Gnome is total garbage. It was taken over by Clueless Idiots and Chinese Communists about ten years ago. All they do is remove features and move buttons around. Allan Day shouldn't just remove the status icon tray, he should delete the entire Gnome 3 project!

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 2, 2017 17:26 UTC (Sat) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (5 responses)

The first amendment does not apply to private web sites.

You have been told many times to stop these pathetic personal attacks. Red baiting a free-software development project? Really? You do this again, I will delete it.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 3, 2017 0:37 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (4 responses)

PJ was pretty ruthless about deleting comments - "If I wouldn't have it in my living room, I won't have it on my blog". The result was a damn nice place to be.

Jon - if you want to censor, go ahead. It's your website, we trust you, and it'll improve the place :-)

Cheers,
Wol

Deleting comments

Posted Sep 3, 2017 2:59 UTC (Sun) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (3 responses)

There is almost nothing we want to do less than policing the comment stream; that's part of why deletion of comments tends to happen at a rate of less than once a year. I would really hope that LWN readers wouldn't need that — and most of the time they don't. Please, everybody, let's try to keep it that way, OK?

Deleting comments

Posted Sep 3, 2017 9:15 UTC (Sun) by niner (guest, #26151) [Link]

Actually by not being deleted the original comment is contradicted right in the first sentence. Which sets the correct tone for reading the rest, thereby making it quite amusing. Especially for those > 95 % of the world's population for which "communist" has never been an insult. It reads really like a parody of some crazy conspiracy theorist redneck.

Deleting comments

Posted Sep 4, 2017 11:36 UTC (Mon) by mgedmin (guest, #34497) [Link] (1 responses)

It would help a bit if it were easier to block commenters that don't contribute any value to the site. Now I have to scroll back to the top of the page to find the account settings, and then it always takes me a while to find where the comment filtering controls are (and what they're called).

Deleting comments

Posted Sep 4, 2017 23:14 UTC (Mon) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

Usually I'd put up with the minor detour (this situation is thankfully rare on this site), but seeing this thread prompted me to do something. So, here's a usercss to keep the menu in view if anyone else wants it:

.topnav-container { position: sticky; top: -.3em }

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 5, 2017 9:16 UTC (Tue) by aigarius (subscriber, #7329) [Link] (5 responses)

IMHO there should *not* be a way for a graphical application to stay running if its window is closed. That is a dumb clutch from the times of not having working workspaces and tiny monitors. If you want to show that your application is still running and show some statuses - hey, how about having a *window*?! And if I close that window, how about you stop the application instead of sitting somewhere in the background and using my RAM, my CPU and my network traffic?

Applications need to be sandboxed, so shell would force them to close when application window is closed by the user. If you want to do something that has no window, maybe you should write it as a Gnome Shell extension instead.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 5, 2017 9:33 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (4 responses)

Bullshit. I have plenty of apps that I want to keep running but for which I don't want to see their windows.

I have a couple of IM apps running and I want to be able to tell if they have any pending notifications. I also want to be able to see at a glance if my status is set correctly (away, invisible or active).

Then I have a VPN app and I want to be able to see if it's connected. I also have a Kerberos authenticator application that refreshes my tokens and allows me to switch profiles by clicking its icon and selecting the one I need.

And there are several more apps that I'm using more occasionally.

> If you want to do something that has no window, maybe you should write it as a Gnome Shell extension instead.
Yep. And of course, GNOME doesn't have a stable ABI for extensions. Oh, and it'll require you to add dependency on GNOME, no QT for you. Of course, KDE or other desktop environments are not supported.

Yeah! Way to win users and developers.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 4:11 UTC (Thu) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (3 responses)

Ooh, what kerberos authenticator app is that?

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 4:24 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (2 responses)

A slightly modified version of https://github.com/viveksjain/heracles . I swear I saw a Linux port of it, but I can't find it now.

Before that I was using official http://web.mit.edu/macdev/KfM/KerberosClients/KerberosApp...

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 6:30 UTC (Thu) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link] (1 responses)

Ah, I missed that you were the person who switched to a Mac laptop. I did find krb5-auth-dialog although it's a bit underdocumented. On the Mac side, we deployed KerbMinder but that's no longer developed, NoMAD is what's recommended now.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 7:11 UTC (Thu) by zdzichu (subscriber, #17118) [Link]

krb5-auth-dialog looks like stock GNOME 3 functionality. After you've configured your kerberos logins in GNOME Online Accounts, you will get notifications about expiring tickets with “Get ticket” option right in the notification bubble. There was some option to auto-renew tickets, IIRC.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 5, 2017 17:39 UTC (Tue) by bandrami (guest, #94229) [Link] (8 responses)

Spolsky IIRC once said that Microsoft fundamentally didn't understand how users used Excel. The dev team kept thinking of it as a platform for calculations, and the users insisted on seeing it primarily as a way to spatially lay out information.

Similarly, I get that the Gnome team feels like devs and users have fundamentally misunderstood the notification system for the better part of two decades. The Gnome team wants to provide a way to display transient, time-critical information like "you just lost network connectivity" or "your battery is about to run out" or "you just received a chat message". The problem is, what 3rd party developers and users are much more interested in a way to display permanent heads-up information like "your wireless is still connected" or "your battery is charging" or "while you were out of the room you received at least one chat message". It's not uncommon to have impedance mismatch like that, but what does really seem limited to Gnome is that the team has now spent *years* banging their heads against this particularly wall hoping that eventually we users will see the light like they do. It's all the more puzzling because I can't for the life of me figure out what design principle made them decide this is the hill to die on, over and over and over again.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 5, 2017 21:01 UTC (Tue) by halla (subscriber, #14185) [Link]

Without reference to Gnome, that is actually a pretty apposite observation. Yes, you're quite right. That's how I care for my systray icons. They tell me stable information, reassuring me that everything is still fine, not warning information.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 5, 2017 22:32 UTC (Tue) by ms-tg (subscriber, #89231) [Link] (6 responses)

I'm just lost as to why this has to be a conflict. Can someone, preferably *on* the Gnome team (since this is LWN after all), just go ahead and clarify:

1. What is the Gnome team's theory for how to serve the need for "current status" display and interactions:
> a way to display permanent heads-up information like "your wireless is still connected" or "your battery is charging" or "while you were out of the room you received at least one chat message"

2. How is this "current status" theory intended to interact with features such as notifications?

Such a clarification here would be helpful for me to understand, so thanks a lot if you are in a position to answer!

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 9:57 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (5 responses)

> 1. What is the Gnome team's theory for how to serve the need for "current status" display and interactions:
> a way to display permanent heads-up information like "your wireless is still connected" or "your battery is charging" or "while you were out of the room you received at least one chat message"

The first two are easy easy -- wireless connected, battery charging, etc have permanent icons in the upper right corner. They've been there (in one form or another) since the beginning of G3.

I can't comment on the third, though the TFA did mention the recommended mechanism for IM-type notifications.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 6, 2017 12:58 UTC (Wed) by bandrami (guest, #94229) [Link] (4 responses)

Sure, but what Gnome seems fiercely opposed to is allowing developers to supply arbitrary permanent, glance-able status icons; above you can see the repeated charge that too many applications do that if they are allowed to.

Does Gnome want to provide a way for application A to convey information that I can glance at at any time without leaving the context of application B, or am I right that Gnome is opposed to that on design principles?

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 2:08 UTC (Thu) by ocrete (subscriber, #107180) [Link] (3 responses)

> Does Gnome want to provide a way for application A to convey information that I can glance at at any time without leaving the context of application B, or am I right that Gnome is opposed to that on design principles?

One of the goals of the GNOME 3 design is to allow for distraction free work, and to force all notifications through the notification panel (and the notification API), so they can be controlled by the user (who can for example decide to ignore them all. So a status panel is just a bad idea.

The idea is basically to do the same thing that iOS/Android do. They don't have icons for all apps tha can work in the background, you only get a notification if something worthy happens.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 3:09 UTC (Thu) by bandrami (guest, #94229) [Link]

Yeah, I have read that. I try to place myself in a headspace where a huge balloon popping up is less distracting than a status icon blinking or changing colors, and I can't get there. But I stopped banging my head against this wall years ago, and haven't used Gnome since about 3.8. I wish them the best, but I have literally zero desire for a computer (on which I produce things) to have a similar interface to a phone (on which I consume things).

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 3:11 UTC (Thu) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link]

Opinions clearly differ on this point. Strongly. My vote obviously counts for nothing, but I prefer a status panel to notifications. I generally turn off all desktop notifications because they are more annoying than useful.

Day: Status Icons and GNOME

Posted Sep 7, 2017 4:19 UTC (Thu) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link]

Android is actually moving towards requiring notifications if you want to run as a background task: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/android-8-0-oreo-...

This is more about power saving though, so the user knows what is running and can stop it to save power. The section on notifications is also worth reading https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/android-8-0-oreo-...