Re: new module proposal: notification-daemon+libnotify

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

Calum Benson wrote on 07/11/08 13:09:
> 
> On 6 Nov 2008, at 17:38, David Zeuthen wrote:
>...
>> "There is a high probability that one or more of your hard disk will
>>  malfunction within the next 24 hours"
>>
>> "Your laptop battery is being recalled"
>>
>> "Security updates available"
>>
>> I'm not sure where we'd display stuff like this except for using icons
>> in the notification area.
> 
> Some sort of status icon change with an appropriate tooltip would
> probably be sufficient for things that don't need immediate attention. 
> For things that do, or for which there is no status icon, an alert box
> is often more appropriate anyway.

With my Ubuntu hat on, I'll go a little further than that, and say we
really would rather application developers didn't use status icons *or*
notification bubbles for critical situations like those in David's
examples. (Other distributors may, of course, have different opinions.)

Status icons are often ignored or not noticed, especially when there are
many of them, and notification bubbles work best when they go away by
themselves. So while both of them have a purpose, neither of them are
suitable for things that people really positively need to respond to. If
there is no more pleasant window in which to convey a critical situation
like that, use an alert.

Cheers
-- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/