Re: [PATCH] Rudimentary libnotify support

[Johan Brannlund <johan_brn yahoo com>]

On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 20:50:05 +0200, Albrecht Dre�wrote:

> I think adding it to svn is a good idea, as it will probably trigger
> more responses and new ideas.  Good work, Johan!

Thanks. :)

>> 1. I get two notifications if I get two messages delivered at the same
>> time (via POP3) - does anybody else see that?
> 
> Yes, same effect here.

As I wrote to Pawel, I *sometimes* get two notifications.

> Maybe, according to the level, "Balsa warning", "Balsa information",
> etc.

Possibly.

> You could also use more attractive icons, probably the Balsa logo
> with a /small/ version of the icons you use now above them, or something
> like that.

Well, the present icons are just stock GTK icons. Anything else would 
require some actual graphics work, which I'm definitely not the right 
person for.

> IMO, real errors should still be dialogues.  E.g. if sending an
> encrypted message fails due to a missing key, the "message could not be
> sent" dialogue is still there, but the reason is in the notification and
> disappears after a few seconds.  If the user is somewhat inattentive,
> there is no clue what went wrong.

True. I'll think about this. Like you said, maybe we should add it for 
now and await user feedback.

> Probably it is better to add "Notification" as configuration option
> (also solving the previous point), so the user has the choice of
> "Nothing", "Terminal", "Notification", "Status bar", etc. 

That's definitely an option.
 
> Something which is beyond the scope of this patch: the code to detect if
> and how many new messages arrived is somewhat broken: sometimes new
> messages arrive, but no information is shown (usually when tehere are
> unread ones? - not always reproducible).  Or the information is shown,
> but the number of messages is wrong.  

I've also noticed this. If I have some spare time I might take a look at 
this.

> Once the code works reliably, this information could be used to add a
> GtkStatusIcon to the system tray, which would be the perfect combination
> with the notification.

Well, maybe... I'm not too keen on using the notification area. See also 
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/desktop-notification-
area.html

One idea which I've toyed with instead is to write an applet which caches 
notifications and lets the user display them at will, possibly filtered 
by application or urgency.

Regards,

Johan