Re: [Evolution] Hundreds of alarms

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo ximian com>]

On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 17:06, Dwight Tovey wrote:
> Rodrigo Moya said:
> > On Tue, 2003-12-23 at 04:17, Dwight Tovey wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2003-12-22 at 11:19, Rodrigo Moya wrote:
> > >
> > > > your problem is that there is no stored date for the last
> > > notification,
> > > > so the alarm daemon thinks the last notification was in 1/1/1970, so
> > > it
> > > > shows you all alarms since then :-(
> > > >
> > > > It should probably just use the current time as the last notification
> > > > date if that setting is not set.
> > > Ok, that explains not only the many alarms that I got this morning, but
> > > also the long past-due alarms when I haven't logged in to this system
> > > (my laptop) for a few days.  In some circumstances I can understand
> > > wanting these past-due alarms, but frankly, in general they are mostly
> > > just a nuisance.
> > well, they are if you use the calendar just once in a while. But if you
> > use it daily, as I do, they are really useful, like reminding me of
> > events that happened when I was on holidays, for instance.
>
> Great.  It works for you.  I'm happy for you.  For me though I already get
> told enough by the rest of the staff if I miss a meeting.
then, you don't need the calendar at all, so you dont worry about the
alarms, right?

>   I don't really
> need my email program nagging me also.  I want to be notified at the time
> of the meeting (or appointement, or whatever), but I don't need it to tell
> me that I missed yesterday's weekly status meeting.
well, I can't think why you don't want to get notified of an event you
missed. As I said, if you use the calendar and set an appointment for
last Monday to get your dog to the veterinary, and open today Evolution,
I can't think why you don't want to be notified. Unless, of course, your
dog tells you when the meeting is, as your staff does with office
meetings :-)

> > >   I still think that it would be better if it was
> > > possible for the user to decide to only have alarms as they happen and
> > > ignore anything overdue.
> > not sure if that would be a good solution.
>
> Care to expand on why not?
I mean, if the user doesnt want to have alarms, then she creates
appointments without alarms. If you create alarms in your appointments,
why don't you want to be notified of those alarms?

Since your case of not wanting to be notified seems to be a corner-case,
adding a config option only for a few people seems overkill.

If you can prove lots of people use alarms but dont want to get
notified, then, we'll add the config option. Until then, I'll think it's
a bad solution.

>   What would it take to include a configuration
> option so that the user can specify an age limit for alarms?
I think it will be used by just a few people, and will clutter the
preferences.

>   Either make
> it a per-alarm setting (trigger this notice within X minutes before the
> set time but not more than Y minutes after) or a global setting (don't
> trigger any alarms that are more than Z hours past their set time).  Leave
> the past-due alarms perpetually enabled by default (that way you don't
> change existing behavior), but give the users the ability to disable old
> ones.
wow, those are a lot of options just for, IMO, a corner case of a few
people not wanting notifications of missed alarms. Probably a better UI
person than I could give his/her opinion on that?

> Just don't take the M$ mentality of saying "I do it this way so everybody
> will do it this way".
what's M$?

cheers