KTp/RepeatedDiscussions/SystemTray

Make a system tray feature

We sort of do.

Before continuing, right click on the system tray, select "Entries" and select "Instant Messaging Presence". This allows you to control your status and launch the contact list.

This has most the functionality of a system tray icon.

Why not just make the contact list dock to the system tray?

Due to the archiecture, everything is no longer 1 monolithic application. You don't need the contact list to be running to be online (like we would for Pidgin or Kopete). There's no point leaving the contact list using up resources when you're not using it. The contact list launches as quickly as it would from a system tray.

As we get more and more contacts (a typical Facebook user will have > 150 contacts) the idea of using a list to select someone becomes more obsolete, searching in a huge list isn't practical. Instead we want to encourage the use of krunner/homerun and the various applets. It ties in better with our future kpeople work which are more contextually aware.

By making it a plasmoid you can also see an indicator when you are offline, like you might see network status or speaker volume. A plasmoid is technically a lot more powerful, and will allow us to make more dyanmic tooltips and menus. It also can fit in with the plasma theme.

Will you accept patches to add a system tray, even as an option?

No.

If you really want to leave the contact-list-running use an application like AllTray. http://alltray.trausch.us/ .