Re: requesting official list of modules and versions for GNOME 2.14

[Paul Drain <pd cipherfunk org>]

> Using the power management metaphor (but not referring to anything
> that g-p-m does) we can look at some events and attempt to discuss
> whether or not they warrent some form of notification:
>  - UPS battery backup has kicked in: yes, this is not always
>    obvious, some notification of the event is warrented

Agreed, some people don't have a UPS plugged directly into the back of
their machine -- so the loud 'donk' noise that's emitted needs to be
substituted with something the user can see.

>  - You're about to run out of battery power: I made this the most
>    obnoxious dialog in the desktop, it's large and gets in your way
>    (but doesn't steal the focus). I don't think it should be a
>    notification, because if you only have 5 minutes of power
>    remaining, we want to make sure you know. The dialog
>    automatically dismisses itself if you plug into mains. This
>    dialog exhibits (though accidently) very similar behaviour to
>    MacOSX.

Agreed, it probably doesn't need to warn in increments though, "you have
enough power" versus "you don't" based on whatever the slider bar is set
for in the preferences is probably suitable.

>  - You have used up half of your battery: who cares, you are going
>    to look at your battery status on the panel long before the 1.5
>    hours it takes for this dialog to arrive.
>  - You have 30/20/10 minutes left: I feel that your average laptop
>    user (including me) will not be planning their laptop usage far
>    enough ahead of time for it to matter. They're not likely to say
>    "oh, I've only got 30 minutes of power left, I'd better start
>     working on this other task". If they're in an environment where
>    their power is limited, they will have started working on that
>    task first. It is my (uncorroborated) opinion that the only thing
>    that matters is losing your work because you run out of power.

*nods*

>  - Beginning suspend: this seems redundant. Perhaps if I've run out
>    of power, the screen should be locked for input with the message
>    "Your battery is critically low, the machine will now suspend to
>     save you from losing your work. Please plug your machine in and
>     power back up to continue". This should be one of those
>    obnoxious dialogs, ideally it should appear as part of a nice
>    graphic that takes place while a progress bar shows you that
>    you're suspending. A notification that quickly vanishes is
>    probably not much use, and is certainly not accessible.

I'd love to see that, from a sysadmin perspective, there used to be the
odd support query come through that "my screen went black and the lights
went off" -- only to find the machine had gone into suspend.

FWIW, it's not just Linux that has that problem though --
suspend/hibernation issues used to happen on Win32 too.

>  - "Your laptop is now fully recharged"; this is acceptable, if the
>    user opts to care. Having a notification bubble for this is the
>    current default in battstat.

*nods*

>  - "Your mouse is about to go flat"; this also makes sense, since
>    now I know why my mouse stopped working.

substitute "mouse" for "devices that power management knows about" and
that'd be cool.

> On the subject of other applications and other uses for the
> notification framework, there are a lot of things in which the
> notification framework would be useful in opt-in circumstances, eg:
>  - new users coming online in presence framework;
>  - the song that is playing
>  - wall messages and other UNIX messages (eg, those sent with `write`):
>    davyd localhost says "dude, you're using all the CPU time up :("
>    Traditionally these are already opt-in/out, we should use that
>    existing framework. Also useful:
>    From oper charlie15: charlie15 rebooting in 5 minutes for "new
>    disks". This is quite common in some multiuser environments.

Actually, things like:

- 'your network is up/down/cannot be contacted', (network-monitor 2.12.0
gives you a visual icon for this, but it'd be nice to know if you'd
suspended/resumed and lost your connectivity).

- 'you've switched from wired-to-wireless or vice-versa'

Would also be useful here.

> Here are some areas that need definite attention in any future style
> guidelines:
>  - "You have unused icons on your desktop"... gee, thanks

Possibly the most useless notification ever, i've had one SME
installation that actually used the "Windows made some of our icons
vanish over the 2 week-break" line to move *to* a Linux Desktop.

>  - "Your system is insecure"... possibly unhelpful, perhaps it would
>    have been more helpful to tell me this when I somehow made it
>    insecure. Assuming I opted to do this (which is the way it should
>    be) perhaps I really want this message to f*ck off.

I guess that'd depend on if the insecurity was caused by:

- not having up-to-date packages on your box (in which case, having an
update manager warn you about it is more than sufficient).

- your box not being firewalled.

- a remote user causing trouble (multiple incorrect SSH password
attempts, for example).

- a local user causing trouble.

>  - "You have new updates"... not sure about this, Ubuntu started
>    doing it, it appears at the start of every session, even when I'm
>    not on an Internet connection. I have to click on this dialog to
>    make it go away (in Breezy at least), this was apparently
>    impossible to do without a mouse (because I didn't have one with
>    me). As a result, some part of my screen was obscured for the
>    whole session.

Which was, if I hadn't mentioned it, one of the original issues I had,
you have to click on the "warn me later" or "show updates" buttons to
make it go away, the TAB key doesn't know what you're on about, and
there's no Alt-F* binding to access things in the notification tray[1].

>  - "Your system needs rebooting"... this seems reasonable, without
>    giving me some obnoxious dialog, it is pointing out an icon in
>    the panel that will reboot my machine when I'm ready.

I like the icon in Dapper for this, it just pops up in your notification
tray and lets you know you need to do it at some point.

Although, without forethought, I can see such a time where GNOME might
adopt a more 'consumer-oriented' 'Your system needs a reboot, so we'll
do it now' strategy, which would irk me to tears :)

> This email has probably gone on long enough, I have more examples
> written down, these are ones off the top of my head.

Is there a wiki entry for this? If not, could there be? :)

Paul

Footnotes:

[1] Actually, that'd be awesome -- just as Alt-F1 does the Applications
menu, if another Alt-combination could access the tray by default, then
TAB moved between the icons there -- it'd solve the "I only have a
keyboard w/ accessibility turned on and I must scream" issues i've had
with popup bubbles since the start. [2]

[2] ... of course, no idea if that's possible or planned :)