blinking widgets...

[Ben Johnson <ben blarg net>]

Hi.

I can configure my Debian unstable gnome apps "ring" visibly when the
system bell rings.  I like that.  Also, I noticed that Windows XP will
do something similar when a modal dialogue is active and you try to
click on some other piece of the application to get your attention.  I
like the Windows blinky thing a lot.  it's very effective and intuitive,
imho.

I want to do something similar in my app.  I'm going to end up with a
page full of options the user will need to choose from.  Some options,
once chosen, will require the selection of some other options.  I think,
instead of showing an error message in a little annoying dialogue that
no one will ever read and requires someone to press OK, I'll make a way
to blink the possible options.

I'm thinking, to do this, I'll make an object...  an object call
BlinkWidgetsGroup or something like that.  To use it, you instantiate it
then add, one at a time, any widget that you want to have blink.  Then
you can optionally set things like the duration of a blink, the color(s)
to use, maybe some sort of "blink style" (like "focus-on-off", or...
"background-light-dark", and so on).  Then call the blink function.
hrm.  and maybe you can have it destroy itself when it's done blinking
too.

What do you think?  useful?  Does something like that exist?  Is there a
better, easier, more flexible, (or whatever) way to do it?  worthwhile?

- Ben