Decisions › D02
The first shape: a Plug Journal tray with a submenu per device
Context
Round 1 built five genuinely different directions on the same three recorded frames of the rack (a plug, a busy bus, a restart), then scored them against the frozen criteria. Three hard gates applied to all: never steal focus, never interfere with hardware in use, prototype only.
The decision
The Plug Journal tray led at 82 of 100 and became the provisional default: a small tray icon with one coalesced notice per plug, a Recent list first, and a submenu per device built from its driver. It was a standalone Python process with stock AppIndicator and libnotify.
The report said where it was weakest: the menu renders text rows only, so there is no visual hierarchy, and the output is not machine readable.
Why
It was built for the first requirement, plug it in and see it appear, and it did that best.
“I just want to plug stuff in and see it pop up.”
Zach Yamaoka, 21 Oct 2026
It lost to a window. The next day Zach went through his own screenshots of other tools and chose a different shape. His note rules out the one built-in place the first round had tried, and describes what he wanted instead.
“I wouldn't put it on the built in ubunut thing but thats an even more compact entry point there:”
Zach Yamaoka, notes, 22 Oct 2026
“Ok I think this is a nice simple layout... basically a bar on the left... perhaps like a search bar on top and then you click it and you get more details”
Zach Yamaoka, notes, 22 Oct 2026
Options considered
Weighted score out of 100, from the round-1 report. The decision hinge it named: moving 10 points from “small to keep alive” to “a styled, sourced glance” flips the order.
| Direction | Thesis | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Plug Journal tray | A small tray that leads with what just changed: one banner per plug, a Recent list, a submenu per device. | 82 |
| Registry contract | One versioned registry file every tool reads; the top bar is a one-line label that opens a dashboard. | 77 |
| Station board | The rack is declared as slots; the top bar counts drift between expected and present. | 76 |
| Quick Settings device list | A native GNOME Quick Settings toggle with a Bluetooth-style device list. | 74 |
| Hub row | No new icon: an IO section inside an existing tray popover. | 70 |
Consequences
- What survived: the coalesced plug notice, one small Python process, a chip with a count, and the station board's idea of expected versus present, which came back as the expected setup.
- What did not: the tray as the whole interface, and anything inside Ubuntu's Quick Settings.
Evidence
- Babble and prune, round 1: five top-bar directionsReport, 2026-10-21. Evidence for this decision.
- IO diagnostics: the converged designReport, 2026-10-22. Evidence for this decision.
- IO diagnostics: converged designContract doc, 2026-10-22. Scope, layout, the two planes, port ownership, the contract and the open question about reusing Lichtblick.
Commits in the app's repository (private):
633a49d2026-10-21 Babble round 1 gallery: five directions, V2 provisional at 82/1000a138b12026-10-21 Freeze the criteria before any variant