Comment 29 for bug 332945

I also like the Ideas behind the new notification system and I love the idea of cleaning up the notification area, but does this mean notification area is deprecated?

Agreed, there are far too many applications abusing these icons by presenting completely irrelevant icons. Mainly applications stating »Hello, I am running and there is nothing to do« should not go there.

BUT: Update notifications are a perfectly valid example of reasonable notification icons. An update is an event that requires action, sometime in the near future.

Open windows like that update notification waste space in the window list and they do appear in the application switcher (alt-tab) - Notification icons do not. They are in no possible way ever in the way of the users work flow. But with a glimpse you could determine that some action is required.

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And now for something completely different:
Windows implements an option to install updates on shutdown. So maybe update-manager could be coupled with gnome-session-save to display the update-notifications on shutdown. That would could be another solution to the problem of users not realizing the notification icon. Of course with an option to not install the updates, because sometimes you’re in a hurry an want the system to shutdown fast.

~jug