Windicators

Now we know why Ubuntu really moved the window controls to the left; Windicators! 

Is there really a call for a bunch of little status icons in enough apps to justify a desktop level system to support them?

Aren't we trying to pare down how many icons end up in the system tray equivalents of our various desktops? 

Isn't tying status icons to individual windows kinda missing the point? Now you have to keep the upper right corner of every app you want to monitor visible instead of looking at a common, always visible area.

I hope no-one uses an X for a status indicator. Much hilarity would no-doubt ensue.

He's got a point about abolishing the status-bar, think of how many applications only use it to display simple short messages or icons, everything else is wasted space.

However often those short messages are quite useful if not essential: consider things like the col/char/row indicator in Notepad or the hot-tracking help feature in many MFC programs. They're going to need to modify their Windicators API to support textual display if it's to become a true replacement.

...else we're at risk of ugly poorly designed applications spamming their titlebars with useless little trinkets. *nix developers are not known for their UI design prowess.

That seems pretty ambitious idea he has, especially the kind of work it will require. Reparenting windows in X11 design is the job of the window manager. This will probably require some massive changes to either X.org itself or metacity and Compiz Fusion. Good luck with that Canonical devs.

It's a bad idea. KDE developer Martin Graesslin put it well: Why you should not use client-side window decorations...

Bass said:

That seems pretty ambitious idea he has, especially the kind of work it will require. Reparenting windows in X11 design is the job of the window manager. This will probably require some massive changes to either X.org itself or metacity and Compiz Fusion. Good luck with that Canonical devs.

And what about GNOME 3. Canonical still refuses to give a comment about their plans of GNOME 3.

So is this going to be part of Gnome?