And now a new micro feature for KDE SC 4.5 🙂
Since today you’ll note that the expand button on the systemtray got rotated: weird isn’t it?
That is because it doesn’t expand anymore the systray to show hidden icons, instead when you click it, this is what happens:
There is a popup menu with all the hidden items in it, perfectly interagible and with a text label near to them: the rationale of this change is simple:
- Hidden icons are rarely seen, it could be hard to recogniza them when you need one, so the label is very helpful
- Often you expand the panel only to access a function of an hidden icon, then you don’t need te expanded systray anymore
- Expanding the systray the unhide button actually moves, so it’s not immediate to close it again
- When the systray is open, there is no way to distinguish icons that are norally visible and hidden
This has been done pretty early in the 4.5 cycle, so it’s still open for change, feedback and the due bugfixes 🙂
Hey I really like the new feature. was first not so sure if the change makes sense but reading the explanation i got convinced. Should save me some clicks…
but actually i have another issue. I work with 2 panels (one at the top and one on the left side) and i would like to have 2 systemtrays (left hand side systray icons and top for the notifications)
i tried already to do it with just 2 sustreay-plasmoids but they share the settings… any chance this will be changed at some point?
Huh. Interesting. Haven’t not tried it yet, I’m somewhat concerned that it’s less clear, visually, that the menu is connected to the systray. It looks more a part of the panel right now.
Absolutely loving it. I might actually start to use the hiding feature now. The old workflow never really worked for me, for some of the problems you point out.
I love it when a new feature makes sense …and this one makes huge sense 😀
Really great feature, much better than the older one.
Makes way more sense!
> any chance this will be changed at some point?
yes. in fact, it already has been changed.
in 4.5, the notification icon is a plasmoid on its own. it can be put into the systemtray as it always has been, but you can also move it out on its own quite easily. this also allows one to have one system tray with notifications and another without.
The concept is very good and saves some clicks (it always bugs me that I have to minimize the systray manually after I just wanted to access some program), but David is right, you should make it ab bit more clear visually that the menu belongs to the systray.
This doesn’t seem very intuitive. Try to find out if a similar interaction exists elsewhere already in KDE and try to do the same, e.g. perhaps the way the breadcrumb widget paints those arrows in Dolphin.
On top of that, you might want to add a mouse-over tooltip that informs the user about what that button does, in case this info isn’t there yet. However, please look at the design first.
Please don’t do it, or at least provide it as an option.
I like the way the systray works now (I can keep it expanded or not depending on what I have do to).
Many users are confortable with / used to the way it is now.
Great idea! But I must accustom this behavior.
Maybe better if both behaviors are present?
Would it be possible, on expand, to replace the single row system tray with a widget containing a grid of tray icons superimposed over the existing panel location, so that the previously visible icons do not apparently move? This would be a more seamless transition. Bonus points if you can do it without flickering the tray icons 😉
Thats great, thanks for one more win7 ripoff! After successful aero snap ripoff you are going beyond 😉
Sorry for being a bit off-topic but, could it be possible to make new icons appear to the left of the existing ones? It’s quite frustrating trying to click an icon just to see it move to the left and dodge you, especially when Plasma is starting and lots of application are adding their icons.
If icons appeared to the left the only potential miss is the arrow to get to the hidden icons.
Oh, an I like the new expand button. 🙂
I’ve never liked the change in systray icon hiding behavior that was introduced in Windows 7, and now KDE is going to copy it. Ok, but I would appreciate more if there was finally an option to make icons consistent in size – I know this is partly application’s bug (like dropbox on your screenshot doesn’t show properly sized icon according to given X windows), but having an option to set systray icons to 16×16 (yes, current icons in systray are so big for me, taking a lot of space) would be just great.
Never used Windows 7 so don’t care if its copied or not – I like it! much doesn’t rearrange my task bar and I don’t have to move my mouse horizontally.
Nice idea 😉
KDE in general gets better and better usability 🙂
A little suggestion concerning the expand arrow…currently it’s located somewhere left of the actual systray area in the panel but it overlaps a bit, what about putting this entirely into the systray area but in a small section with perhaps a seperator between it and the shown icons (or another background color). Then it would be clear that this belongs to the systray and not the panel. IMHO the current overlap does look a bit quirky
Anyway thanks for improving KDE 🙂
just a idea which I had some time ago (its independent from the changes now).
New programs are currently popping up (added) on the right side of the systray. So the order of the icons is same order as I start the programs, they are mixed.
If it is easily possible to detect the category of the started program, they could be sorted by the category in the systray. I mean that for example “kmail”, “kopete” and “akregator” are on the “internet” category (K-Menu). So it would be nice to put these entries in the systray together. Or for example put “amarok” and “Kmix” together.
Could this lead to a systray button leading to the whole list popping up?
Please add possibility to disable the hiding feature all together.
I’m not sure if I like it. It breaks IMHO the visual concept of the systray. Icons are aligned horizontally but expand vertically? If the icons are not recognized, the icons should be reviewed, putting a text lable next to them isn’t a solution. I’m not sure what you mean with the second point. But I disagree on the fourth, I think that’s the purpose of unhiding: Showing the full set icons in a similar way and not a normal systray + a menu.
STOP adding stupid useless “features” one-in-hundred people will use and focus on stability and porting missing 3.5 functionality!!
I hated the “XP” way it was before, but I love the “win7” way of handling this. Nice job 🙂
That icon looks so out of place anyway, it should be better integrated in the area, in a similar fashion to the notifications icons from the right side (in the same rectangle, having a more bright background to it). Please do something about it!
>Expanding the systray the unhide button actually moves, so it’s not immediate to close it again
One thing that occurs to me – that problem could be solved by having the expansion button on the right of the tray and have the hidden icons fill in on the right with the visible ones sliding left.
However I still prefer the menu you’ve proposed but I think I would prefer the expansion button on the right – it seems easier to find that way.
I just don’t like any autohide features in the tray, never liked it on Windows either back then. I think it’s currently too hard to disable autohide completely (one setting for every icon, with autohide being the default). If that was fixed I wouldn’t care how autohide is implemented. FWIW, I like this implementation less than the previous, but it doesn’t really matter.
Nooooo! I hope it could be disabled.
To be honest I think the idea of “shrinking”(I mean hiding some of the items) the tray is something which goes against the idea of system tray. In my opinion the system tray should be used as a notification area so it should be visible all the time. So I can take a look at the tray and immediately know that eg. I’ve got a new mail.
Every now and than I’ve to expand the area because some of the items gets hidden. I’m not keen of it but it’s not so often because after doing that it stays expanded. With this style of expanding system tray it couldn’t be done effectively.
Add this as an new option, but keep its current usability.
I find it great.
And, actually, it will close a really annoying bug for those having a panel which resize automatically. Currently, the systray resizes itself before the panel, and sometimes the panel doesn’t get resized at all, for instance if you anchor the panel on the left and expand/collpase the systray quickly.
Unfortunately, as I don’t really agree fully with the usability improvements, it looks to me like a workaround.
Please make this change optional. I really don’t like it. I hate it on windows-7. I like it much more the way it is done in kde-4.4.
I agree with Blackpaw, the arrow could be on the right side, it seems more natural to me (in case of systemtray on the right side of the screen).
Personally, I would prefer the current (4.4) state, but it can be also changed – the arrow could be also on the right side and there would be no problem to click on the same place twice to show more icons and hide them again.
There is also another solution, left the arrow on the same place and show expanded icons on its left side (keep arrow in the middle during expansion), maybe it could be weird, but it would help to distinguish the expanded icons.
Anyhow, it would be really nice to have more possibilities and have the right to choose. 🙂
Thank you for your enthusiasm and everything you have done!
kinda remove your abnoxious ‘This site does not support IE’ crap.
Will there be a chance in KDE SC 4.5 to switch back to the “old” (KDE SC
Will there be a chance in KDE SC 4.5 to switch back to the “old” (KDE SC 4.4) style? I really like it a bit more.
But thanks a lot for your hard work!!
Edit: Sorry for the truncated post before.
i’ve used to a big panel in kde3.5 (48 pix in height) and i used two task rows and a quicklaunch in two rows. my systray behaved same way. now unfortunately, my kde 4.4.1 systray needs a big panel size to array its icons in two rows. i’m posting this petition to fix this. sorry if this sound gross but english is not my native language:
i want a very compact 2 rows systray. so my panel stay slim.
thanks in advance.
A bit off-topic, but why not have a “scrollable” systray? I mean, a fixed-width viewport to an arbitrarily long strip of icons, which may be scrolled left or right.
Some advantages I see in this approach:
– The actual size of the systray would remain constant, i.e., it would not cause the other icons on the panel to shift around.
– Compactness: the width of the systray could be adjusted in terms of, e.g. how many icons the user wants to see at once.
– Constant arrangement of icons within the systray itself: sure, the icons would move from left to right, but they would move all together, as a block: their *order* would not change and, more importantly, the *spacing* would also remain constant -> good for spatial memory.
– No issues with vertical panels. Just change the scrolling behaviour from left-rigth to top-bottom (this could be also applied to horizontal pannels, i.e., scroll one full “strip” at a time, up or down).
– This could be made to look really cool with some kind of “kinetic scrolling” effect! -> also good for touchscreens.
All of the above nonwithstanding, I totally agree with previous posters that even having the *need* to hide part of the systray is a design failure, but oh, well…. I’m afraid that’s a lost battle.
Alas, I have no coding nor design skills myself to prototype the idea, so all I can do is just let it go out into the wind.
I am always consireding the problem what all the pop-ups causes on the systray. The default setting for notification will be staying on systray (yes?) so then if you have this dialog open and the notification pop’s up. You get messy UI.
It is already happening with all task what pop-ups. Like with KMix, Klipper etc. User can not even keep device notifier next the notification / systray because if notification pop’s up. You get two dialoges top of each other.
There really should be somekind joined notification system that does not allow this to happend.
It is nice to see that possibility to move the notification as own widget is again since 4.0.x/4.1.x.
Not better make it as plasma expander(or some think like that). Normal plasma tray icons would be on tray area. Hidden will be displayed on expanded area. User could move expanded area. Hide/unhide button will only hide/unhide expanded area.
I liked the old behavior more. And I agree a way to disable autohide with one setting would be also nice.
the functionality has changed when accessing/viewing the icons – example YAWP when hidden this way doesn’t show the temp (seems to show the forecast which is way too small to be useful) nor are the YAWP settings available with the right click (only the system tray settings settings are available)
Also the expansion should close when somewhere else on the screen is clicked (like Lancelot is supposed to) – should be required to click to close. Maybe hovering should initiate
the functionality has changed when accessing/viewing the icons – example YAWP when hidden this way doesn’t show the temp (seems to show the forecast which is way too small to be useful) nor are the YAWP settings available with the right click (only the system tray settings settings are available)
Also the expansion should close when somewhere else on the screen is clicked (like Lancelot is supposed to) – should be required to click to close. Maybe hovering should initiate
ly seen, it could be hard to recogniza them when you need one, so the label is very help
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Hi! I prefer the old horizontal expansion ability of hidden icons. Please let it be optional.
Thanks, Nikos