Pithy Widget to Monitor and Control Virtual Machines

[SchemaCzar]

I was looking at the nine-year-old enhancement request #93 and decided the request was irretrievably broken.

The problem is that users (those like me running various multiple VMs at different times) need a really compact go-to place to check status of a VM and make quick adjustments.

We have multiple options for doing this, people!

• System Tray control (original request, MS Windows only)
• Menu bar (operationally the same as Windows tray, only on Macintosh)
• Application icon (Taskbar on windows, called taskbar on Gnome too, dock on Mac)
• "Mini Controller": movable, independent, tiny window (like iTunes "Miniplayer")

The entry points of the UI are "small" widgets which bear iconic images with transparency/translucency. These should size between 16x16 and 256x256 pixels to handle the wide variety of sizes supported in various platforms. The same display mechanism should be used wherever used - systray, menu bar, taskbar/dock, "mini controller"

1. "MASTER" widget - overall VirtualBox status

This can indicate any of the following: overall state: VB off, VB active but no running VMs, VB active with running VMs number of running VMs: number or depiction resource load: CPU graph of VirtualBox load as percentage of host computer, Memory load of VB in host.

Selection menu:

• Start VB
• Quit VB
• Nice shutdown all VMs (option to quit VB)
• Suspend all VMs (option to quit VB)
• Nasty poweroff all VMs (option to quit VB)
• each running VM
• each off or suspended VM
• submenu to VM groups

2. VM Group widget

Essentially the same display options as VirtualBox Master status

Selection menu same as Master except for "Start VB" is replaced by "Start all VMs"

3. Virtual Machine widget

Icon display options:

• states: Off, Running, Suspended
• resource usage: CPU load, Memory load
• VM Main display thumbnail
• Guest operating system symbol ("Tux" etc)
• VM Name
• VM's custom icon
• VM Main display Large "Aero" or "Coverflow" preview

Selection menu should be the same as the context-click menu on a VM in the VirtualBox Manager window.

DISPLAY PREFERENCE SETTINGS

• Hide taskbar/dock icon; default show overall state; alternatives show cpu/mem/etc load, numbers
• Show tray sitter (Mac menu item) as overall VB state; default do not show; alternative show cpu/mem/etc load, numbers
• Hide active VMs from menu completely; default show inline; alternative show in "Active" submenu
• Show inactive VMs in menu; default hide off/suspended VMs; alternative show in "Inactive" submenu
• Show grouped VMs inline; default show VMs in submenus named for group; alternative hide groups and their VMs
• VM group icon displays as resource load; default show as generic box; alternative show activity, numbers
• Display VM groups as separate icons in taskbar/dock
• Display VM groups as separate icons in tray/menu
• Show VM icon as resource load; default show with custom icon or OS icon; alternatives OS icon, main display as thumbnail or aero, state, other resources, name
• Display VMs as separate icons in taskbar/dock
• Display VMs as separate icons in tray/menu
• Hide MASTER widget icon from taskbar/dock
• Show MASTER widget in tray/menu
• Show vm/group/command icons in Widget top-level menu; default no icons in menus; alternative show icons in all menu levels; alternative show "Aero" previews in top-level menu only
• Leave "miniviewer" running after VirtualBox manager quits