GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 125553
Have tray icon reflect playback status
Last modified: 2006-05-16 08:06:51 UTC
Noification area icon should be a matter of preference. Also, it should use middle mouse button to allow performing most common operation, like play/pause or next song (should be in prefs too) Notification area context menu should probably contain 'Quit' action (although it may be to easy to click accidentally, so it should be placed carefully)
The Status Docklet plugin for XMMS has customizable bindings, I found my favourite set up was middle click for pause/play and buttons 6/7 for forward/back (On my mouse they are thumb buttons), with left, right, and wheel bound the same way as RB has them currently. For three button mice, maybe use middle chords, middle-right for next, middle-left for previous. Rockers are another possibility, like double clicking but switching buttons. left right for next, right left for previous.
Is this going to be fixed? GNOME has started suffering horribly from panel-overflow-itis, as seen on Windows 98, and Rhythmbox is one of the culprits. There's no reason to stick a permanent icon in the _notification_ area, which as the name suggests is for _notification_, and it should be a matter of preference whether it ever puts anything there at all.
The notification area icon could be much more useful. It could be used to indicate the current state of the player (playing/paused etc), which would be a nice usability enhancement.
Bug 165713 also suggests a "Quit" option for the popup menu.
I heavily agree hat the notification area icon should not be displayed by default. Rhythmbox should provide a "View->Hide Window" menu entry for that case.
Please see also the GNOME HIGs, Status Notification Area section: "The utility of the notification area decreases rapidly when more than about four icons are always present. For this reason, icons that appear only temporarily in response to events are preferable." http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/desktop-notification-area.html
For me, the notification area rhythmbox icon is something I count upon. I have my rhythmbox / music always on. and I like to be able to turn it on/off or switch songs fast without seeing the main window. It's music, it's background, it shouldn't be visible at all unless I want it so. Just filed a few bugs to allow it to start up to notification area and start playing automaticly in fact. imho there should be a quit option in the menu, or it should be replaced with a very sleek menu applet with more options. In that case, it should have proper play-pause / forward / backward / and status notification at the very least.
It now has a quit button ... 2005-06-12 Christophe Fergeau <teuf@gnome.org> * data/ui/rhythmbox-ui.xml: add Quit menu item to the tray icon
Rhythmbox also now pauses when middle-clicked on the tray icon. More configurable options for tray icon clicks is in bug 133000, removing the tray icon is bug 317982. I'm re-titling the bug to reflect the remaining request, that the icon show playback status.
and that's covered by bug 314608. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 314608 ***