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HFS 3: tray icons?

rejetto · 14 · 5942

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Offline rejetto

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i want to discuss with you:
do we need tray icons in HFS 3?

currently tray icons are used for
1) have a quick access to HFS administration
2) have "background" view of downloads going on

---

Contribute to this discussion, keep in mind your needs first, but also others'.
Usability is very important.

HFS administration in version 3 is web.
you "solve" this by making yourself a bookmark in the browser.
Anyway, let's think about usability. We have to provide the user a simple and quick way to
A) know HFS is running
B) access the administration (and maybe also the front-end).
C) close the program

A possible way is to have a tray icon, as it is in version 2.
When you click the tray icon, you get a menu with: administration, quit.
Anyway, tray icons are Windows only. HFS 3 is multiplatform. Having tray icons now is difficult, and must be done differently for every platform. Having a truly cross-platform solution would be much better.

At the moment HFS runs in a "text window" (also said "console", or "dos box").
A possibility is to use this window for A) and C).
Inside the Window there could be a message like "press A to access administration", so to cover point B).

Note: "administration" is just starting the browser on a specific address (web page).


I think we can just have no tray icons for the downloads.
When you want to see what's going on you will access administration.
HFS will provide access to this information for other software, so another software can make such tray icons if desired.


Offline raybob

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Are you planning to have HFS 3 be a single file like 2.x?

If not you could consider having something like what Apache does where it has a tray icon, but for a separate app all together that just starts/stops the actual service.

If not I do think that having a tray icon somehow would be a good idea.  Will logs be seen in the console output?


Offline Mars

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with a tray icon , it's possible to know immedialy if hfs is running on Windows, and to have a direct acces to his working state by  some informations

what is important with tray icon:
first use of the tray-icon is the information message

Then comes the need to act quickly on the state of operation by direct commands do not require the use of a browser

we must also consider the launch of hfs as a service, the browser will allow his administration.

the tray-icon could be an independent executable program communicating directly with hfs, this program can be secured by windows permissions again to be used by anyone.


Offline rejetto

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Are you planning to have HFS 3 be a single file like 2.x?

no

Quote
If not you could consider having something like what Apache does where it has a tray icon, but for

i considered it.
i'm asking for pondering on cons and pros.

Quote
If not I do think that having a tray icon somehow would be a good idea.

......................why? :)

Quote
Will logs be seen in the console output?

probably not.
the logs should stay in a file, and visible in the administration.


Offline rejetto

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with a tray icon , it's possible to know immedialy if hfs is running on Windows, and to have a direct acces to his working state by  some informations

i guess this is all possible also in the console.
I'm trying to understand if the tray is core, or not.
It will ANYWAY possible to make a tray utility.

At the moment, even the integration with the command line is made with a separated program.
There's a program called "cli.js" that takes its parameters, connect to the running HFS, and pass them (via socket).

Quote
the tray-icon could be an independent executable program communicating directly with hfs,

yes, that's probabily how it would be.


Offline Denis

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In which language is it written?

And what i thought about was a tray icon which - when you click on it would look like this:


------------------------------
|           User Web         |
-------------------------------
|   Administration page   |
=================
|            Quit                |
-------------------------------



So that everything is on the web, the administration interface and it all, so that the only thing you are running on your computer is a invisible server :-)

That will also make administration a lot more easy, because you can do it from whatever computer you want :-)

Won't what be cool?


Offline rejetto

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what you suggest is essentially already contained in the my first post ;)



Offline Denis

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I think that HFS should run in the background, invisible :-D

And then you could install something like a plugin that correspond to your p,at forms to get a tray-icon :-)

The only problem is: what if the user dosen't install a tray icon, you could have the server running without the knowledge of that it was running. So I think that this solution would be great if anyone had a idea about how to accomplish this problem :-D


jannuh

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Why not look in the logfile if server is runnin and what's exactly is going on...

I do this all the time on my main PC with Tail32 (Tail for Win32)

Tray icon is enough when it shows admin task (imho)


Offline Denis

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But in that way HFS could be running and you would not know :-( There need to be a way so when you look on the screen you would in the same moment be reminded that HFS is running :-). Else, I would see it as a security problem and HFS does not deserve that ;-)


jannuh

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When you open the logfile from HFS in Tail32 You can see in realtime what's going on


Offline Denis

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Yeah, but what if you don't open the log-file or forget. Nothing would remind you of that HFS is running :-)


Offline almulder

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I like programs having the tray icon optional. Some programs I want to see the icon, others I don't. HFS i do like seeing the icon. I use Teamview to access my server and at a quick glance I can see that HFS is running. I would prefer the tray icon. (Maybe make it optional for people. On by default with option to turn off.)