[Qt-interest] Use of System Tray on Mac

[Darryl Hunter]

Hmm....thanks for the response.  I'll mention this to the customer and see
what they want.  I know what you mean about annoying messages coming from
some system tray icons (this one actually just flashes to highlight
attention, without popping anything up - makes it a little less annoying).

-----Original Message-----
From: qt-interest-bounces+darryl.hunter=codersoft.com.au at qt.nokia.com
[mailto:qt-interest-bounces+darryl.hunter=codersoft.com.au at qt.nokia.com] On
Behalf Of Nikos Chantziaras
Sent: Sunday, 13 February 2011 10:11 AM
To: qt-interest at qt.nokia.com
Subject: Re: [Qt-interest] Use of System Tray on Mac

On 02/13/2011 12:54 AM, Darryl Hunter wrote:
> Just to expand on your proposal...are you saying to have the application
always running, and to have it in the dock minimised, so it can have the
menus that are in the system tray icon (which include launching it, advising
of updates, etc)?  Or changing the logic on the Mac so when it starts the
main application, it is more embedded in that application?

I don't know the answer to your original question, but according to Apples
"Human Interface Guidelines", applications should not be running or check
for updates unless the user actually starts the application.

So in other words, having a "systray icon" running is a bad idea on OS X.
If the user wants to start your app, he will do so from the "Applications"
dock icon.  He does not need a systray icon.  He also does not want update
messages popping-up out of the blue; those are to be issued at application
start-up.  Also note that users on other platforms also hate systray
pollution and tasks running in the background for no good reason (update
checks are not a good reason.)

On the other hand, I know nothing about the nature of your application
:-)  If the whole point is to have a deamon running in the background that
actually performs work, then I guess a systray icon might be acceptable.
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