If you have an interesting GNOME applet idea or you have improvements to this document, please let me know ! An applet that allows you to change your GNOME Proxy configuration with a single click.

Galeon used to have a single click 'Network Proxy selector' in their menu, which I used frequently. In a discussion with Epiphany developers about this same functionality (using GConf) they argued that you could already move the Proxy Network capplet to your taskbar.

But that doesn't offer all the functionality I'm looking for. What I think would be neat is:

• An applet that gives you a list of preset configurations upon a single click.

• Each configuration is called a 'location' and could either mean:
  • No proxy
  • Manually configured proxy
  • Proxy Auto Configuration (PAC)
    • A remote URL, eg. http://pac.isp.net/path/file.pac
    • A local URI, eg. file:///home/user/pacs/location.pac

• When you select another location, the applet should replace your GConf settings accordingly. (GConf key: /system/http_proxy)

• A preferences dialog should allow to manage locations and even test a location (see if proxy works or check PAC syntax ?).

• In a later phase there might even be an automatic selection based on eg. the network-configuration (ip-address, network, gateway, ??). So the applet has to monitor the network configuration for changes.

• When using tsocks or dante lib, we could have a dialog to socksify the complete system. (Add it to /etc/ld.so.preload or run /etc/init.d/tsocks)

A first basic implementation is in the file proxy-applet-0.2.3.tar.bz2 and packages can be found at http://dag.wieers.com/packages/proxy-applet/. An applet that shows active network interfaces and their network-configuration.

Windows XP has a useful LAN connection status icon that shows the state of an interface (similar as what mii-tool gives). There's already a netspeed applet and a netstatus applet but those are mainly made to see the bandwidth usage and are not similar to what the Windows XP applet does.

The applet would do the following:

• Have a GUI to select the interfaces you want in your Panel notification area.

• Monitor the interface and upon change indicate it by displaying the tooltip for a couple of seconds.

• It shows graphically whether an interface is up. A tooltip gives more information about the state of the interface. (And maybe some stats)

• If you click the applet, you get a 'pull-down' dialog, much like the default GNOME Clock applet. A user should be able to copy&paste the network interface configuration.

You can find RPM packages containing the netspeed_applet at: http://dag.wieers.com/packages/netspeed_applet/ An applet that enables your current GNOME session to be VNC (RFB)-aware.

heXoNet used to have a VNC GNOME 1.0 applet that actually does what I want. But they used the Xclasses toolkit and it doesn't work with a GNOME 2 taskbar.

Eventually it should give the same functionality as the Windows AT&T VNC server applet for configuring the VNC server and providing the user with information on the network IP configuration.

You can find RPM packages containing x0rfbserver at: http://dag.wieers.com/packages/rfb/

An applet that gives you fast access to a phonetic alphabet of your choice with a single click.

I often find myself spelling out passwords or URLs over the phone with my own made-up alphabet which often leads to more confusion.

The applet would consists of:

• A drop-down list of the implemented phonetic alphabets (or maybe a configured list). A list of phonetic alphabets is found at: http://montgomery.cas.muohio.edu/meyersde/PhoneticAlphabets.htm

• When clicking the applet, it should show the alphabet in a window that stays visible much like the default GNOME Clock applet, but maybe on top. So that you can look at it while working and answering the phone.

A first implementation is in the file alphapplet-0.1.tar.bz2 and packages can be found at http://dag.wieers.com/packages/alphapplet/.

Here is a screenshot of the basic version:

Here's a list of other useful (non-default) GNOME applets I'm using:

• Hardware Monitor applet
• Lunar Clock applet
• Netspeed applet
• Netstatus applet
• Quick Lounge applet
• Sticky Notes applet

Here's a list of some GNOME tray applets:

• DrWright tray applet
• Switcher tray applet (written in C#)
• XMMS tray applet

I couldn't find a lot of documentation on writing applets. Here's what I found:

• Panel Applet Writer's Reference Manual
• Writing GNOME panel applets
• The Mono Handbook
• MonoWiki
• GtkSharpWiki
• Mono Documentation Online