Re: new module proposal: notification-daemon+libnotify

["William Jon McCann" <william jon mccann gmail com>]

Hey Christian,

2008/11/10 Christian Hammond <chipx86 chipx86 com>:
> Very critical notifications can be set to have a non-expiring timeout. This
> would ensure that they stay visible until the user acknowledges them.
>
> Some people have also talked about writing a notification backlog for
> important notifications, where an icon in the tray blinks when there's
> certain notifications you missed. The problem with this is that you really
> need to have a fine-grained concept of what's important and should trigger
> the blinking. You could leave it at critical notifications and you might be
> fine, but these may as well just be set to not disappear by the calling
> program if it's really important (your battery is going to explode).

Yes, I'd like to see this too.  There are a number of reasons why it
would be useful to have an obvious way to view a record of
notifications.

 * Queue all messages while away
 * Queue messages (except critical) while busy
 * Queue messages (except critical) while in fullscreen
 * Hide all but important (but user configurable) messages by default
 * Access messages later that were dismissed by mistake (ie. be forgiving)
 * Provide a way to see missed messages or messages that timed out
before I could read them
 * Provide an API to screensaver/display-manager to get number of
unread messages
 * Minimize distraction for less than important messages
 * Remind me of when a message arrived (eg. oh man has it been an hour
already since that appointment reminder)
 * Provide a way to discriminate what is important enough to disrupt
me (blinking is pretty severe, colors/boldness may work)
 * Allow the user to configure what is important to them or what they
never want to see (ie. put the user in control)
 * Allow the user to use the bubble to quickly decide whether the item
needs immediate attention but have the freedom to access it later
(after the bubble times out). [1]

Jon

[1] A good use case here is an instant message conversation.  I
probably want to see a bubble for the first message from a friend.
But I don't necessarily want to respond immediately.  And if I choose
not to respond immediately I still want to have an easy access to that
message.  Also, I probably don't want to see another bubble message
from that friend until I respond once.  However, it may be useful to
increment a counter on the status icon that represents the message
history (aka. the notification center).  Facebook and Adium have good
examples of this type of status icon.