Re: notifications (window hints)

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

Hi,

On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 7:26 PM, Adam Williamson <awilliam redhat com> wrote:
> Sorry for vague terminology here, I'm not an expert. :)
>
> so, in GNOME 2, an app can set some kind of hint that it wants to notify
> you about something, which causes its entry in the window list to start
> pulsing. the classic use of this (for me at least) is to know when
> someone's pinged me on IRC: I see xchat's window list entry start
> pulsing, I go and see what some idiot wants. :)
>
> in GNOME 3, it seems like this hint is pretty much thrown away. the work
> around i've been using is to enable xchat's notification plugin, which
> makes it send a notification when i'm pinged. With the old GNOME Shell,
> where this notification popped up at top-right next to my name and was
> always visible, this was almost as noticeable as the pulsing window list
> entry. With the new GNOME Shell, where the notification just pops up at
> bottom right for a few seconds then disappears unless I go and manually
> check that bottom-right area again, it's a lot less noticeable.
>
> now, I was thinking: Nokia actually came up with a really great
> notification system on the N900. when there's some kind of alert, the
> 'windows' button at top left goes yellow and pulses a bit. this doesn't
> get in the way of anything but is always visible and quite noticeable.
>
> can't we do something similar with GNOME Shell, for whatever window hint
> xchat uses? Have it make the Activities button (or whatever you call
> that thing at top left that says Activities...) change appearance
> somehow, and then in the overview screen, change the appearance of the
> thumbnail for the window which set the hint? Give it a yellow background
> or make it pulse or whatever?

I think (though I may be mistaken, it has been a while) that I
addressed this in the original GNOME Shell design document.  In brief,
my view is that interruption without information is disruption.  A
blinking light will be psychologically compulsory.  You are forced to
constantly trade between being informed (the negative of missing out)
and being interrupted.  I don't think that results in an enjoyable or
productive experience.  The goal with the shell is that you get a
snippet of information with each interruption in order to
assess/triage at a glance - or even turn off all interruptions.  This
allows the user to stay in control.

> This seems to me a subtly different case from notifications, which is
> why GNOME 2 handled it differently: xchat can't really tell me *what*
> it's notifying me about in a way that works with the notifications
> system, it's really just a 'you should probably look at this window now'
> hint. It seems to me that it'd be a benefit to implement this into GNOME
> 3 alongside actual notifications, just as it was in GNOME 2, but fitting
> the GNOME 3 interface.

xchat can most certainly tell you what is notifying you - just like
many other communication programs.  It does this for me so I'm not
sure why it doesn't for you.  Perhaps there are some poor defaults
that for how it sends notifications.  I think the Shell might even
have special handling for xchat.  Don't know the details offhand.

Big picture:  Apps don't get to demand our attention.  They have to request it.

Jon