Re: How to get Empathy to always popup msgs

[Thiago Bellini Ribeiro <hackedbellini gmail com>]

On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 1:01 PM, Gabriel Rossetti
<gabriel rossetti trafigura com> wrote:
> You are correct, I have never directly voiced miscontempt with the notification system. I didn't do so 
> since other have but maybe I should have.
>
> The biggest issue I have is the fact that I have no way of knowing a notification came and went, I have to 
> activate activities or try to get the notification bar to come up when I want it to and not come up when I 
> don't want it to. I eventually installed an extension to deactivate the notification bar from popping up 
> since I activated it too much by mistake and it gets annoying. It gets worst for non-tecky users, I have 
> had to deactivate it for them since they just don't understand what is going on when the move the mouse by 
> mistake and activate it, they say their screen is frozen.
>
> If someone writes me a msg on empathy and I am not there to see the notification, I have no clue someone 
> wrote to me, I have often missed important msgs because of this since they are hidden away. It gets even 
> worst for non-supported ones like Skype. If you look at android for example, just by looking at the screen 
> I know I have received emails, chat msgs, etc; if I want more info I can quickly get that. In GS I have to 
> click/move my mouse/kit a key (being proactive) to know I have a notification, which makes them useless IMO 
> since they don't notify my of anything (unless I see the notification popup, I find those to be too 
> distracting and intrusive).

I created this extension [1] exactly to solve this issue. When I used
gnome-shell for the first time (gnome 3.2) I loved it, but I was
always missing chat notifications.

The extension is very simple! It'll blink the message on the user menu
every time there's a notification that "needs your attention". It's
very generic, so it will work with any kind of notifications (empathy,
skype, any notify-send notification, etc). It'll ignore resident
notifications (like rhythmbox ones) to avoid false positives and etc.
So, if it's blinking, for sure there's a notification requesting your
attention.

It has some preferences to "only alert about chat notifications" or
"alert even if the notifications are set to off" (that is, you can
turn OFF the notifications on the user menu to avoid the popup, but
you will still know when there's a new notification). The color and
the blink rate are too configurable.

If you try it, let me know if it solves your problem :)

[1] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/258/notifications-alert-on-user-menu/

Cheers,

--
Thiago Bellini Ribeiro | http://hackedbellini.org

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.” - Confucius