For now if we got incoming msg,spark will auto popup the chat dialog which interrupt our job.Maybe we could check the msg later.So I think I need a mechanism for notification.Refer to a im client called QQ[visit http://qq.com if you are interesting in it] from china,it do it perfect.When msg comes,qq just play sound alert if user have choosen this notification.And more it will blink the system tray icon.That is so good because users could just ignore it.And when user is free then he can check the system tray to see if there are some msgs.If so,click the icon to check it out or user hot key to do this.Another good effect the qq is to auto dock the main ui.
3.swf (2082847 Bytes)
Spark already has notifications options and you can turn off bringing chat window to the front, also you can turn off the popup, so in that case only a chat window will flash in the taskbar. Newest Spark SVN code has even more options (like you said, showing new messages in systray). But you will have t wait until the next release (can’t say when) or build the latest version yourself.