Re: idea: widget alert

[Ben Johnson <ben blarg net>]

On Mon, Jun 20, 2005 at 12:49:00AM +1000, Timothy Stebbing wrote:
...
> widgets for 'alerting' the user to the widget. This would make the widget
> blink/glow/throb/sparkle, depending on the gtk theme engine in use.
> 
> The primary use for this would be to notify the user about some change in
> the state of the application, for instance a 'wizard' could call alert()
> on the 'next' button once all fields on the page have been filled in. I
> can see this being used for things like the pager, when an app changes
> urgency, or in applets to alert new mail recieved, etc.
> 
> Perhaps alert could take a level of urgency, form 0 to 2, that the theme
> could use to alter its alert affect.As all widgets are rectangular, the
> call would pass the widget dimentions to the theme engine.

I've been thinking about doing something like this myself.  I have
experimented a little with some success.  my trial implementation is
both cheesy and limited though, so I won't bother sharing it.

my future plan is to create a new object to implement this.  the way it
works:
- instanciate a new object of this kind
- add any number of widget objects, one at a time, to the "blink it" list
- set the blink type (there can be a variety)
  - set the on-off blink duration
  - set the blink colors
  - set the number of blinks that occur when an alert happens

once you have a set of widgets in the object you can initiate the alert
by calling some function in the "GtkBlinkIt" object.  The blinking can
be made to stop prematurely through signals.  I think the actual
blinking should be implemented by changing the color of the widgets.

The only reason I haven't already done this is I haven't had enough time
and the GtkMessageDialog serves more or less the same purpose.

- Ben