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by tapoxi 110 days ago
they still, to this day, pretend the concept of a system tray doesn't exist. unfortunately applications expect one, so they put it behind a menu in a dropdown with a picture of a ghost so you know an app is hiding somewhere

it's insane
1 comments
ErroneousBosh 109 days ago
Okay, what's a "system tray" and what would you use it for?
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Natfan 109 days ago
a container for information related to your system (datetime, battery, networking, along with custom things that 3rd party apps might put in (automated mouse jiggler, chat client etc)

think i3bar if you need a unix-style equivalency

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ErroneousBosh 109 days ago
Not something I've ever seen (or noticed, at least) or used.

There's a clock at the top of the screen in Gnome.

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troad 109 days ago
> Not something I've ever seen (or noticed, at least) or used.

It's all the icons next to the clock, placed there by applications that run in the background but need occasional interactivity.

It's the thing at the bottom right of every Windows since Windows 95, and the top right of every Mac since Mac OS X. KDE has always had it in the Windows position. Gnome had it in the Mac position from Gnome 2 (2002) until recently (Gnome 4?).

Something that every desktop OS considers important enough to show, except Gnome, which insists your computer is a bad iPad for some reason.

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ErroneousBosh 108 days ago
I guess you'd have to have used Windows to miss it then. I don't understand why it would be important.

Why would I care about what the network is doing?

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troad 107 days ago
The network icon usually contains controls for connecting to and disconnecting from networks, which are obviously useful.

> I guess you'd have to have used Windows to miss it then.

I don't understand what you mean by this. For most of the past 30 years, every major OS had something analogous to a system tray. Win, Mac, KDE, Gnome all had icons next to the clock, that gave access to software running in the background or system functions. Virtually all still do, Gnome (apparently?) does not.

I find it deeply implausible you've never seen or interacted with a system tray.

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