Bug 495060 - Provide a Human Interface Guidelines suggestion on how applications implement system tray behavior
Summary: Provide a Human Interface Guidelines suggestion on how applications implement...
Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME
Alias: None
Product: plasmashell
Classification: Plasma
Component: System Tray widget (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: master
Platform: Other Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: 1.0
Assignee: Plasma Bugs List
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2024-10-19 20:27 UTC by Schlaefer
Modified: 2024-11-01 15:58 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

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Description Schlaefer 2024-10-19 20:27:42 UTC
When it comes to applications there is a wide variety of implementation of system tray icon behavior. That being the application hidden and only exposed through an icon in the task bar.

Some application show their main application window on left click, but don't do anything else.

Some application toggle their main application window on left click.

Some application provide a context menu on left click

Some application do nothing on left click and only provide a menu on right click.

Some application do nothing on right click and provide a menu on left click.

Linux is a vast community but it seems that plasma is an entity who has wide adoption and supports the system tray. It isn't reasonable to expect everybody to ever follow any guidelines. But if someone does care, wants to research expected behavior, it would be nice to have some guidelines. Maybe the plasma HIG are in a position to suggest a preferred behavior.
Comment 1 Nate Graham 2024-11-01 15:58:15 UTC
We do: https://develop.kde.org/hig/status_changes/#system-tray-icons

Overall our guidance is "don't do it". The fact that every app implements their own uniquely bad UX for system tray icons is the reason we make that recommendation. THe UX basically cannot be made any good here, even if it were actually consistent between apps (which it never will be).