Random fact of the day: "system tray" is the wrong name

[pne]

You know the little area at the end of the task bar, at the opposite end from the Start button, where the clock lives and, often, various little icons?

Some people call it the "system tray" or the "tray".

Apparently, its proper name is the "notification area". (That entry also gives a clue as to why people might think it's called a tray. Hysterical raisins, as so often.)

Comments

[kake]

I think the people saying "let's stop being pedantic and go with the term that most people understand" have a very good point.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I call it the "system tray" because I know with absolute certainty that Windows 3.1 (if nothing else) called it the "systray." And I know this because my very first computer in college had something wrong with it where every time I booted it up, I would get a "SYSTRAY ERROR." It was eventually determined to be something related to the clock.

In other words, his assertion that it has never been correct is utterly wrong.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

Okay. I re-read the post and see his point that the fact that the whatchamacallit is run by a program called SYSTRAY.EXE does not mean that the whatchamacallit is the systray. I have to ask, then: why did they pick the name then? I mean, it's like wearing a shirt that says "Hi, my name is Bob" and then getting mad that people don't call you Anthony.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I have to ask, then: why did they pick the name then?

Because In early builds of Windows 95, the taskbar originally wasn't a taskbar; it was a folder window docked at the bottom of the screen that you could drag/drop things into/out of, sort of like the organizer tray in the top drawer of you desk. That's where the name "tray" came from., I presume.

So the whole lower bar used to be called a tray, so they called the program that; then they changed their mind about the function of the thing (a bar showing the open programs, rather than a try you can drag-and-drop things onto and out of) and its name, but they didn't change the name of the program (since program names tend not to be user-visible much anyway).

*shrug*

But as nou, and several of the commenters on the blog entry, said, so many people call the bottom right thing the "(system) tray" (including some of Microsoft's own documentation, apparently), that it's probably not worth worrying about it now.

[(Anonymous)]

I stand by my position that if you call a program "flibbertigibbit.exe," you have no right to get mad when people think that the thing it controls is called the flibbertigibbit.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

How did that happen? I replied from my email!

[pne.livejournal.com]

You sure you're not talking about Windows 95?

From what I remember about Windows 3.1, the clock was a separate program and you could place it somewhere on your desktop, but there was no handy little always-on clock in a corner of the screen. (Back when you started programs from the folder-based Program Manager rather than from the Start menu.)

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I don't know. The problem is that I had a custom-built computer that definitely came with 3.1, and possibly at some point it was upgraded to Win95, but I'm not sure (I thought not; I thought the now-ancient laptop was the first "new Windows" computer I had, and I got that after I graduated); and I lived in the same dorm room for two years in a row, and I remember being in that dorm room and having a friend working on it, but I can't remember when during that two-year period it would have been.

But thinking about Windows 3.1, of course you're right that there wasn't a little clock, though I can't quite picture what the desktop looked at with nothing open. Was it just rows of folder icons?

[pne.livejournal.com]

I can't quite picture what the desktop looked at with nothing open. Was it just rows of folder icons?

I think if you had nothing at all open, you'd just see various icons.

Usually, though, you'd have at least the Program Manager open, since otherwise you couldn't really start other programs -- and that would have at least one folder open, possibly several. (Though some people used the File Manager instead.)

Try Google Images for "Windows 3.1" for a reminder, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Windows_3.11_workspace.png or http://www.microsoft.com/germany/presseservice/images/pressemappen/20jahre-windows/Windows-3.1-Screenshot.jpg or http://members.fortunecity.com/pcmuseum/win31.jpg.

[denial-land.livejournal.com]

but! The program "trayIt" allows me to put any tsk or program into the sytem tray notification area. They call it that way. IT MUST BE TRUE.

Seriously, this is news to me. Microsoft calls it "Infobereich" on my German version. Hmmm. Well, I am not going to argue terms, but it seems odd that everyone knows what I am talking about when I say system tray. Let's call it "the thingy where the annoying bubbles come from" now.

[allegrox.livejournal.com]

I remember the term "clock tray" but that's because I used GoMac, which was a taskbar clone for Mac OS and which used that name. But rather than being a notification area, it was used as a place to stick icons of programs that were running but which you didn't want taking up so much space in the taskbar.