Re: Desktop-Wide User Status

[Alan Cox <alan lxorguk ukuu org uk>]

On Maw, 2004-09-07 at 17:47, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> If you're sitting at your computer, do you really need it to tell you
> that you're there?  ;-)

Yes. It goes beyond users to applications too

If I am "busy" then I probably also don't want general notifiers and
more noise popups from applications whether directly caused by people or
from system state. I'm not sure of the whole semantic of such a thing
(eg Evolution alarms when you are busy - is that urgent alarms only).

If I am "away" its a good time for my desktop to sneak off and do
housekeeping, reindexing, upgrade checking and downloading. It may also
indicate that calendar alarms should switch to say SMS to the users
phone.

Screensavers are only one thing that tells you about this and a dbus or
just gconf property sounds great. Volunteers to write the webcam
chairwatcher ?