Re: [GnomeMeeting-devel-list] Re: Sound events and GnomeMeeting

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

<quote who="Rodney Dawes">

> > [1] For screenshots of what OSX and XP does, take a look at 
> >     http://www.gnome.org/~gman/sound-capplet/
> 
> Was this supposed to be an example of what not to do, or what other
> desktops currently do?

What *to* do, because having fifteen different sounds for fifty different
events is a waste of cognitive effort. When something goes wrong, beep at
the user. They're not going to bother building a mental map of noises to
error states - they just want to know something's up, or something wants
their attention. Having to differentiate or configure the beeps and plops
doesn't help them.

If a particular piece of software has more complicated event notification
requirements, it can handle it all by itself (using the standard play this
sound API, or the text-to-speech API). (I imagine gnomemeeting users who
really get into it - and who receive calls regularly - may want to do cool
stuff with ring-in sounds and whatnot, much like people do with their desk
or mobile phones.)

- Jeff

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