GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 631763
Avoid status icon use
Last modified: 2011-02-04 00:42:21 UTC
GNOME 3 will discourage status icon use. GNOME core components should generally either provide UI through the shell directly (system status indicator, system modal, etc) or use libnotify. Nautilus uses a status icon for displaying progress. Is this only for file transfers? My recommendation is that we use a notification for this. If a transfer is initiated within the Nautilus UI then there is no need for additional feedback. Just show the transfer however you do it there. I guess for now this is a file transfers dialog of some kind. If the transfer is initiated while the Nautilus UI is not visible then display a notification that N file transfers (download/move/copy/burn) are taking place. And offer to show the progress. We could try to show this in the notification itself. Or just take the user to the transfer UI on click. If the transfer finishes while the Nautilus UI is visible show feedback that the transfer has completed directly. If the transfers finish while the Nautilus UI is not visible then display a notification that all transfers are complete and provide an option to show/use them. Also see http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Guidelines/MessageTray/Compatibility Thoughts?
(In reply to comment #0) > GNOME 3 will discourage status icon use. GNOME core components should > generally either provide UI through the shell directly (system status > indicator, system modal, etc) or use libnotify. > > Nautilus uses a status icon for displaying progress. Is this only for file > transfers? Yeah, the status icon is used both as a way to know whether there's a file operation in progress (with more information in a tooltip, such as percentage/speed), and as a way to show/hide the actual 'File Operations' dialogue. > My recommendation is that we use a notification for this. > > If a transfer is initiated within the Nautilus UI then there is no need for > additional feedback. Just show the transfer however you do it there. I guess > for now this is a file transfers dialog of some kind. Yeah, this would remove a way of hiding/showing the dialogue while keeping the transfer running, which I'd rather keep instead (see below for further thoughts). > If the transfer is initiated while the Nautilus UI is not visible then display > a notification that N file transfers (download/move/copy/burn) are taking > place. And offer to show the progress. We could try to show this in the > notification itself. Or just take the user to the transfer UI on click. I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. Nautilus only handles transfers initiated from its UI. Or you mean this would happen when there's already some transfers pending and the user closed the dialogue already? If that's the case, this would imply that closing the dialogue would keep the transfers running, which I actually find a bit confusing without the aid of a status icon. Also, I think users might mentally map "Close transfer dialogue" with "Abort transfers" this way. > If the transfer finishes while the Nautilus UI is visible show feedback that > the transfer has completed directly. Which kind of feedback are you thinking about here? Currently, we don't display any feedback at all (or, to be more precise, the feedback that the file operation has finished is that the dialogue has changed its UI - in case you have more than a transfer running - or disappeared together with its status icon). > If the transfers finish while the Nautilus UI is not visible then display a > notification that all transfers are complete and provide an option to show/use > them. This makes sense, and we could do that anyway. Note that in this context, we could also think about a deeper integration with the Shell by using something like a shell-powered TaskView [1]. [1] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=627772
(In reply to comment #1) > (In reply to comment #0) > > GNOME 3 will discourage status icon use. GNOME core components should > > generally either provide UI through the shell directly (system status > > indicator, system modal, etc) or use libnotify. > > > > Nautilus uses a status icon for displaying progress. Is this only for file > > transfers? > > Yeah, the status icon is used both as a way to know whether there's a file > operation in progress (with more information in a tooltip, such as > percentage/speed), and as a way to show/hide the actual 'File Operations' > dialogue. Should be another way to do both while viewing the nautilus UI. See how firefox4/chrome handle the downloads pending stuff. > > My recommendation is that we use a notification for this. > > > > If a transfer is initiated within the Nautilus UI then there is no need for > > additional feedback. Just show the transfer however you do it there. I guess > > for now this is a file transfers dialog of some kind. > > Yeah, this would remove a way of hiding/showing the dialogue while keeping the > transfer running, which I'd rather keep instead (see below for further > thoughts). > > > If the transfer is initiated while the Nautilus UI is not visible then display > > a notification that N file transfers (download/move/copy/burn) are taking > > place. And offer to show the progress. We could try to show this in the > > notification itself. Or just take the user to the transfer UI on click. > > I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. Nautilus only handles transfers > initiated from its UI. Or you mean this would happen when there's already some > transfers pending and the user closed the dialogue already? > If that's the case, this would imply that closing the dialogue would keep the > transfers running, which I actually find a bit confusing without the aid of a > status icon. > Also, I think users might mentally map "Close transfer dialogue" with "Abort > transfers" this way. I don't think the transfers should really be a dialog to be honest. See above. Maybe something like how firefox4/chrome handle file transfers? > > If the transfer finishes while the Nautilus UI is visible show feedback that > > the transfer has completed directly. > > Which kind of feedback are you thinking about here? Currently, we don't display > any feedback at all (or, to be more precise, the feedback that the file > operation has finished is that the dialogue has changed its UI - in case you > have more than a transfer running - or disappeared together with its status > icon). > > > If the transfers finish while the Nautilus UI is not visible then display a > > notification that all transfers are complete and provide an option to show/use > > them. > > This makes sense, and we could do that anyway. > > Note that in this context, we could also think about a deeper integration with > the Shell by using something like a shell-powered TaskView [1]. > > [1] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=627772 Hmm, I'd prefer not to scope creep too much here.
(In reply to comment #2) > I don't think the transfers should really be a dialog to be honest. See above. > Maybe something like how firefox4/chrome handle file transfers? That would indeed be nice, but then wouldn't such an UI belong to the shell (for instance, to its notification area) rather than Nautilus itself?
I merged a first implementation of this into git master. Closing as FIXED here, please open new bugs for any separate issue you might find with it.