"Always show as icon only" option for pinning apps
Following up on network/neochat!1108 (comment 726976) (CC: @ngraham), hopefully making "Close to system tray" config settings obsolete. As the discussion there notes, people are still asking to show apps in the system tray when closing the app's main window, while still keeping it running.
My hypothesis is that this is useful when using a traditional (text-button) task manager because it gives you two things:
- You want to save valuable space in your task bar, and this way you can get the space at least when "minimizing" the app to the system tray.
- You like having the app mouse-accessible at a single, predictable place in your task bar.
I'd also argue that "Close to system tray" is entirely pointless if you use an icons-only task manager, because you get both of these benefits just by pinning an app to the task manager.
However, if you want to use traditional text-button task managers, e.g. because you like being able to distinguish between your 3 open browser windows instantly, then pinning doesn't help you. It helps when the app is closed:
But then the icon disappears from the pinned area (here: NeoChat) and moves elsewhere once you open the app:
So now it's almost at the other end of the screen, you can't build any muscle memory regarding where to find it. And you can't minimize it back into icon form either, because that's not what your traditional task manager does. Save space or keep it running, can't have both. Tough luck.
That's where "Close to system tray" options still have a use case, particularly for apps with a unique single window whose window titles might not be that useful in the first place. Messaging apps like NeoChat are the prime example, but there are more and you've seen them.
This proposal aims to improve the task manager to cater to this use case and obsolete the need for a "Close to system tray" config option.
At the moment
When you right-click the app either in the pinned icon list (when closed) or as an open task, you get this context menu:
When activities are enabled, I found that this actually expands into a full-blown sub-menu:
Here's the proposal
Icons-only task manager does not get changed. Traditional task manager becomes a "hybrid" task manager, as follows.
We always use a sub-menu for pinning, whether or not activities are running. At the bottom, we add an additional checkbox menu entry (poor man's KolourPaint mockup incoming):
Checkbox phrasing can be tweaked.
When activities aren't running, the "Unpin from Task Manager" entry gets moved into the "Pin to Task Manager" submenu. Possibly getting shortened to simply "Unpin", occupying up the same space that my four activity-based checkboxes take up in the last screenshot above.
An unchecked "Keep Pinned When Active"
option behaves as usual: Once opened, the window appears as a text-button task at the right of the task manager, and the pinned icon disappears.
A checked "Keep Pinned When Active"
option solves the "Close to system tray" use case: Once opened, it stays where it is and behaves exactly like a task from the icons-only task manager. Saving space even when open, still getting an "active" color background when the window is focused unlike system tray icons! Not moving around. Still allowing your 3 open browser windows to occupy the most space in your task manager.
What happens then
As people discover this option, demand for "Close to system tray" will gradually fade away and traditional-task-manager users get the best of both icon-task and text-button-task worlds. People with icon-based task managers were never asking for this to begin with.
Let me know what you think, and if you're using "Close to system tray" options because of a different motivation, let's hear that as well! Thank you