Comment 24 for bug 124326

> Well, there's a problem with the way apps currently behave, regardless of the idealized way they should theoretically behave.

This is true. I brought this up on IRC just now, and people came up with a large set of applications which broke the rules given in the HIG. Either the HIG is wrong or the applications are. We need to sort this out.

> So Rhythmbox and Pidgin should be applets that reside solely on the Panel?

Perhaps; I haven't said exactly that. Perhaps they should both live on the notification area and so should everything else. Perhaps we should come up with a third way.

Thanks for digging up those links. I note that the freedesktop specification explicitly says that only transient icons belong in the tray, so Rhythmbox and friends are still in violation of it.

> As far as I'm concerned, the "iconify" button applies to either notification area icons or applet icons.

I think this is a good idea. One point which someone brought up on IRC is that there is currently no spec-valid way to handle persistent background applications. The spec, as you noted, brushes aside the problem by saying, "Oh, those are just applets". But the trouble with doing them as applets, as such, is that:

1) applets (as currently implemented with the panel) need to be explicitly placed on the panel, whereas notification area icons just appear in any old order in a pleasantly helpful sort of way

2) it is very tied in to the use of gnome-panel; if a program wanted to work just as well with KDE, or even with GNOME for someone who ran AWN instead of gnome-panel, they would have to reimplement the applet part all over again each time. Notification area applets work everywhere.

I think I shall send a bunch of people from Planet GNOME over here to give their twopennyworth; any objections?