Re: [gpm] Re: Gnome 2.16 Module Proposal: GNOME Power Manager

["Luis Villa" <luis villa gmail com>]

On 4/9/06, Corey Burger <corey burger gmail com> wrote:
> On 4/9/06, Luis Villa <luis villa gmail com> wrote:
> > On 4/9/06, Andrew Sobala <aes gnome org> wrote:
> > > Jaap Haitsma wrote:
> > > >>> Richard,
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>> As far as I understand the code of GPM splitting up GPM in a "daemon"
> > > >>> and a "notication area icon"/applet would not be so hard.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> They are pretty independent from each other.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> The "daemon" just has to watch batteries, laptop lid, hardware keys and
> > > >>> take appropriate actions etc. If people run the daemon then they get all
> > > >>> the power management features.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> The applet/"notification area icon" just needs to watch the batteries
> > > >>> (code of the daemon can be reused :-) )and show the status by changing
> > > >>> it's icon and displaying notifications.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> The only message I see that the "daemon" might want to send to the
> > > >>> applet is a message that the system is going to suspend/hibernate and
> > > >>> that is already something we want to do to notify other apps that the
> > > >>> system is going to suspend/sleep and that they need to take appropriate
> > > >>> actions if necessary.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> So in my opinion it's not that difficult, or am I missing something?
> > > >>>
> > > >> But what's the point?
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >
> > > > 1. It's good design to split up parts which are doing different things
> > > > ( You can also put all your code in one source file, but that's not good
> > > > design )
> > > >
> > > > 2. An applet would be much more consistent with how GNOME works at the
> > > > moment. If I want to add something to the panel I just add there by
> > > > doing "Add to panel" and if I want to remove it I choose "Remove from
> > > > panel". GNOME unlike windows luckily doesn't put many stuff
> > > > automagically in the panel :-)
> > > >
> > > It's worth pointing out that gnome-power-manager is very much a notifier
> > > rather than an interactive applet. If your power cable falls out, it
> > > pops up a message saying you've lost power. If you're working away from
> > > a power source, there's a battery indicator with how much power you've
> > > got left... that disappears when you're fully charged.
> > >
> > > (At least, that's how it's configured on my system.)
> >
> > This isn't the default, FWIW. I do agree that making this the default
> > behavior  would be the best approach- better, IMHO, than a regular
> > panel applet. I only want to know about power when something bad is
> > going wrong, which is exactly what the notification area is for. An
> > applet is all the time, and so is the current default behavior in the
> > notification area- both of which are broken.
> >
> > Luis
>
> I completely disagree. There are a few good reasons why an icon should
> be displayed all the time
>
> 1. What state the battery is in is always relevant. Power is the
> single most important thing on a laptop. Without it, you are going
> nowhere.

Wrong. It only matters when you're getting so low you are in danger of
losing work, or when the status changes, or in a couple other corner
cases which can be designed for. It is *not* the most important thing-
the most important thing is whatever work I'm actually *doing*.

I strongly recommend reading 'Designing From Both Sides of the
Screen', where one of the simple design heuristics is to make software
that acts like a butler (or in this case, a chauffeur.) As you drive
around town, does your chauffeur say 'by the way sir, the gas tank is
now 59% full.' (minutes pass) 'oh, now 58% full sir.' No. If your
chauffeur did that, you'd fire him for being an irritating idiot. A
good chauffeur tells you 'Sir, the tank is very nearly empty- shall I
find a station?', and a great chauffeur asks you once 'how early would
you like me to warn you about the gas, sir?' and then remembers that
in the future. When you pull the plug out of the wall, I mean, when
you come upon the sign that says 'huge desert- no gas for a long way',
a good chauffeur says 'Sir, we only have enough gas for 299 miles at
current consumption- would you like me to turn around?'

A good chauffeur, of course, does allow you to ask 'how much gas do we
have?' whenever you get nervous, and admittedly we don't have a great
way of doing that right now when the icon is purely in notification
mode. It would be better to figure that out, though, than to
needlessly put the information on the screen all the time.

Relevant sections of the book, by the way, in google book search:
http://tinyurl.com/qtuwn

> 2. A hidden icon is impossible to view. Unlike Windows, you cannot
> expand a slider to see hidden icons. They are merely gone. Unless we
> fix this bug, icons like power and network state should not be hiding
> themselves.

As noted above, it should only hide itself when necessary.

> 3. Consistency. Now this is normally not an argument I think holds any
> weight, but in this instance I think it does. Without a compelling
> reason to break consistency with other operating systems/desktop
> environments, I don't see why we should.

When discussing the design of notification icons and applets, there
are few things more compelling than the constant presentation of
information that is distracting without being useful.

Luis