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

[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!