Re: idea: widget alert

[Timothy Stebbing <tjs nunatak com au>]

Ben Johnson wrote:

> 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
>
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>  
Sounds good, although I guess my idea with passing the task of display 
onto the theme engine was that the app setting the blink colours might 
clash with the users theme, imagine you decide to blink pink, but your 
user has a pumpkin-orange theme. Also it might not be rendered as a 
'blink' effect by the theme engine, with glx it might be a 
partical-generator or a gradual 'throb' from one colour to the next.. no 
need to limit the imagination of the theme creator.

- tjs