http://www.osnews.com/story/7726/Create_a_Simple_Gnome-Panel_Applet_Win_an_OSNews_Subscription Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2012, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:07:52 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? If only we all could et our little annoyances fixed by having a huge website visited by thousands a day

I'd love to see this in KDE too, I like how Windows separates all that stuff with the toolbar grippies. I always wondered why the Linux "start" button was never more prominent.. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 00:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Heh, I actually wrote an applet to do this for GNOME 1.4... Too bad I don't currently have GNOME on my system... mabey if no-one else jumps on this I will install Dropline. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 00:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? While waiting for the final applet, you can use multiple notification area applets. The icons of applications should only appear in the first one added.

Speaking of which, the notification area applet is a good template for the final applet; find the source for it bundled in the gnome-panel package. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 00:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Actually KDE already does this by default. You can turn the handles on or have them fade out when not in use. It isn't a separate applet, but each applet on the kicker bar has a handle. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 00:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I use apps that use the notification area, e.g. Muine, Gaim, Epiphany-download etc. so I can't use that particular applet to do a job that was not designed to do. Besides, it takes quite some memory too because it was designed to do more than a simple seperator applet. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 01:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? What Eugina wants is a way to have a GtkHandleBox inside a panel applet. The problem is that a handle box does not work vertically. That is why I would suggest a Gtk[H|V]Seperator (depending if it is a vertical or horizontal panel).
I think it would fit in better as well.

(If you don't know what I mean, take a look inside glade and see the difference)

I think a more important applet would be a disk/volume applet that integrates with the new gnome-vfs volume code to allow me to easily see what volumes exsist on my system, un/mount, etc... Mon, 19 Jul 2004 01:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I think that making this using an applet is a little hacky. Shouldn't this just be something provided by gnome-panel?my system... mabey if no-one else jumps on this I will install Dropline. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 01:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I use a "Window Selector" which works a lot better, when you need to pick out a window you can't see, click on it and it comes up with a nice drop down list, much better than the taskbar paradigm. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 01:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I think that making this using an applet is a little hacky. Shouldn't this just be something provided by gnome-panel?

Yes, it probably should be - but its not, and I'm sure Eugen ia doesn't want to deal with maintaining a completely different version of gnome-panel just for her grippies. So an applet is the logical choice. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 01:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? A tad off topic, but use Quick Lounge 2.1.1 to manage your Shortcut Icons. It will give you the little seperator, and allows you to move all your icons as one. It also makes management much easier.

Right Click > Add to Panel > Utilities > Quick Lounge

=) Mon, 19 Jul 2004 02:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Jason, you seem to not have read my article. I know about QuickLounge, I used to use it a lot, but it takes a lot of memory, AND it doesn't do what I am asking on the article. The seperator I am asking for is to seperate a lot of different things as you see in the second shot, not just the gnome-menu with the launchers. That's just one case. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 04:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? a chance to win $20 USD for 2 hours (maybe less) of work. Wow! Why don't you just take the $180 that I could be earning at my standard rate of $100 USD an hour straight out of my wallet? Mon, 19 Jul 2004 05:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Because I am not your employer, I am not even an employee myself. And because you have the choice to do this or not.

And it ain't a "chance", it is a sure thing if you are the first to do it. As you also said, it is a 2-hour hacking, maybe even less if you have gnome experience. Take it or leave it. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 05:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I agree. I found that to be quite cheeky too. I think simply saying "and I'll give whoever first creates this a free subscription as a token of my appreciation." would have more than sufficed.

Personally, I'm far more willing to do things like this out of the goodness of my heart. When people try to 'pay' me with some small amount like that it just makes me not want to do it. Offering too little is worse than offering nothing at all as it makes people feel like cheap labour. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 05:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I am not trying to "pay" anyone. I couldn't do that anyway and I do know about the rates software engineers are getting. Giving away the osnews subscription IS a token of my appreciation and the only thing I can give right now.

In fact, this evening I was thinking of giving out a book too, but I wouldn't be able to send it in a timely manner as the post office is too far from where I live and I don't have a driver's license here in US (my greek license is not valid here).

So, that left me with the osnews subscription.

I wish people would stop picking on words and semantics like that trying to be nasty for no good reason. The intention was good, I wish you could just see that.

If you thought that I was trying to get a software solution "for cheap", you are mistaken. My husband is a software engineer, and I used to be paid very well in UK (since I got married I don't work anymore), so I DO know about the rates that I would have to pay if that was a "contract job". It is not a contract job, it is simply a call out to the community, and I give whatever I can currently give out. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 05:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I already have this with Firefox and Adblock
http://update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=10&vid=215...

got any better rewards that are actually useful ? Mon, 19 Jul 2004 05:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? The version you get with this hack is NOT the same as the one we give away with the subscription. The subscription version doesn't have nested tables and so it's MUCH faster to render, even on cable (but especially visible with 56k/ISDN modems).

And no, I have no other rewards. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 05:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I don't know about gnome applets, but the 'easy' way to do this is to create a custom widget (based on GtkWidget, probably) and use gtk_paint_handle () to draw the handle. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 07:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Heh... Yeah, I've been thinking about the need of this too. Such a little thing would be an obvious way to enhance usability. I sure wonder why GNOME doesn't already have this? Maybe it is because GNOME developers forget such small details nowadays when their philosophers concentrate on discussing vague big usability schemes instead?? >:-)
(sorry, I do like GNOME and especially its usability goals - though I have also recently thought of moving to XFce4 (faster, cleaner, easier to customize etc.)) Mon, 19 Jul 2004 07:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? "Such a little thing would be an obvious way to enhance usability."

Out of curiosity, how is it an obvious way of enhancing usability? To me it seems like a somewhat frivolous feature that some people may find useful.

You may or may not agree with the philosophy behind new features, but at least they don't blindly add things under the guise of "obviously enhancements," which in turn leads to bloat.

I'm not saying this particular applet wouldn't be useful, but at least if you wanted it to be included in GNOME you'd have to make a reasonable argument as to why it provides better usability. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 08:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? > how is it an obvious way of enhancing usability?

There IS enhanced usability when you have a choice of a seperator. There are applets/icons included with Gnome that look too similar, while they act differently (e.g. check the shot, the menu logo and the icons next to it, a setup very common in Fedora and other personal setups). A seperator is greatly enhancing the visual differentiation between elements and makes it easier to the eye and to the mind.

You could argue that you wouldn't use such an applet, but you can't argue that many people would find it useful. In fact, it's more useful than other applets included on Gnome by default, like the Fish or the XEyes.

Eugenia Mon, 19 Jul 2004 08:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Available for both gnome 1 and 2...even comes with themes:

http://gqapplets.sourceforge.net/applet-div.html

Screenshot:

http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~hrpakdel/div.png

Rizo

Ps. I'm not the author... Mon, 19 Jul 2004 08:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? You could always add a starter (without a link) and use a pixmap that looks like a seperator. I often do that to seperate certain "blocks" of different programs. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 09:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Excellent, works just as you would hope Mon, 19 Jul 2004 09:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Good.

if anyone knows who the developer is, and if the developer is willing to test it a bit under the new gnome 2.6.x (the last release of that software was 1.5 years ago, I would prefer to see a check-up against the latest gnome/gtk), then the subscription is his (except if someone emails me beforehand with a new implementation). Mon, 19 Jul 2004 10:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Why don't you just e-mail him (gqview@users.sf.net)? Mon, 19 Jul 2004 11:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.hadess.net/files/attic/gnomepanelspacerapplet.org-10.0-z...
Dated from 2002. Enjoy Mon, 19 Jul 2004 11:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? There IS enhanced usability when you have a choice of a seperator. There are applets/icons included with Gnome that look too similar, while they act differently (e.g. check the shot, the menu logo and the icons next to it, a setup very common in Fedora and other personal setups). A seperator is greatly enhancing the visual differentiation between elements and makes it easier to the eye and to the mind.
>
>

This is assuming people *THINK* and *WORK* like you and you know the old saying about assuming something.

Then again you UI types may not be familiar with it.

It would certainly tend to explain a lot.

As for the Fish or the XEyes apps as I gather they aren't included so much for "usefulness" but rather because they've silly apps which pretty much always has been part of a "Unix Desktop". Mon, 19 Jul 2004 14:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Can you believe the cheek? Here you are complaining about the cheek but did you ever stop to consider how cheek your reply was? Good grief! Was it that important to throw these two cents in?

I'd like to offer you the simple and often stated suggestion that you simply move along if you haven't anything worthy to add to the conversation. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 17:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Can you believe the cheek? Here you are complaining about the cheek but did you ever stop to consider how cheek your reply was? Good grief! Was it that important to throw these two cents in?

I'd like to offer you the simple and often stated suggestion that you simply move along if you haven't anything worthy to add to the conversation.
>
>

Are you very familiar with the expression "People who live in glass houses"? Mon, 19 Jul 2004 18:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? >Why don't you just e-mail him

I have already emailed Bastien and gqapplets guy. And there is one more effort going on, but it didn't work on my slackware so I am waiting for a fix. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 19:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Are you very familiar with the expression "People who live in glass houses"? Yes, I'm familiar with it so I assume that you're implying 1. that my comment was cheek or 2. that I should move along since I didn't have anything worthy to add.

In response..
1. Was my comment cheek? Somewhat I suppose but I was expressing annoyance with the QuantumG's lack for respect for OSNews and what Eugenia was asking for and offering.

2. Did I have anything worthy to add? In my opinion I did. Obviously QuantumG felt that it was perfectly acceptable to belittle Eugenia's proposal because it wasn't in his reimbursement class. When I read his comments it ticked me off and maybe he hadn't read or hadn't thoroughly read the OSNews posting rules. So I threw in my two cents, letting him know that Eugenia wasn't the only one who took offense to his comments. Sometimes that's to the benefit of the community.

Now then, do I feel I have to the right to throw stones in this conversation? Yes, I do. I didn't make any degrading comments, merely just nodded to politeness. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 20:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I point and laugh at you freaks. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 21:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Won't it confuse people if you provide a divider that looks like a handle, but doesn't behave like one ?
NB: I didn't check the one Bastien Nocera made, and I understand that the other one doesn't look like a handle. Mon, 19 Jul 2004 21:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? "Eugenia...his"

Uh, I thought Eugenia was a girl, Eugenia being a girl's name and all. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it just seemed odd to be referring to her as male.

btw, trolling makes the baby Jesus cry. Tue, 20 Jul 2004 09:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? If you're referring to my comments, I suggest you read them again. If you still don't understand please quote the full text and not simply "Eugenia...his" and I shall clarify. Tue, 20 Jul 2004 15:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments