Re: notifications (window hints)

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

Hi Gerald,

On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 8:41 PM, Gerald Henriksen <ghenriks gmail com> wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Dec 2010 19:43:32 -0500, you wrote:
>>
>>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.
>
> Nice in theory, but failure in practice for at least some use cases.
>
> So instead of being given the choice of ignoring/delaying responding
> to a notification, you risk entirely missing the notification - answer
> the phone, turn to talk to a coworker, go get some coffee, etc.  So
> now you have to constantly interrupt what you are doing to see if that
> important email has arrived, or if someone wants to talk to you on
> IRC, etc.
>
> How is this an improvement?

Because we retain and redisplay those notifications.  The design
states (though this isn't yet implemented - help needed) that we
should display the message tray when you haven't been using the
computer for an amount of time (well before the screen off interval).
You also have the opportunity to see messages as you switch tasks in
the overview - since this a natural break in your rhythm.

Jon