Re: [Ayatana] notify-osd + fullscreen + multiple monitors
Martín Soto ha scritto: On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Steve Dodier sidnio...@gmail.com mailto:sidnio...@gmail.com wrote: What about console-presenter and evince / other PDF viewers ? They're used too for presentations. I don't think we can maintain an exhaustive list of applications, so maybe we should provide the user with a GUI to tell which apps shouldnt be overriden and in which circumstances (and have our own default apps there, like Evince in fullscreen, Presenter in fullscreen, etc). How many applications are there that are *commonly* used for giving presentations? Five? Ten, maybe? I really don't see a reason why this couldn't be done in a per-application basis. Martin: it suffers from the same problem as full-screen movies. If I am preparing for a presentation, I can be interrupted by mom, and if I don't want it I can set my state to busy. If I am actually showing the presentation, then I certainly don't want to be interrupted by ordinary notifications. Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Updates on Login
Il 07/07/2009 12:55, mac_v ha scritto: Why do they have to wait! there is no need , it is just install+shutdown! User just selected install and shutdown! I just don't trust the system enough to guarantee it will shut down, and don't trust an old laptop I use at office enough to be sure that it won't burn the office if left unattended for the night. ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] notify-osd + fullscreen + multiple monitors
Il 07/07/2009 13:30, Martín Soto ha scritto: I see a big one: you can easily forget activating the do-not-disturb thing, or deactivating it later. For example, unless you're a very experienced speaker, you're likely to be nervous before starting a presentation. This increases the probability that you forget that little detail of blocking notifications... until that very personal message from your wife pops up in front of the audience, that is. Yes, notifications with a message inside are a bit dangerous. The current behaviour could be changed in: if the chat window for the contact is opened but not visible, show the received message in the notification. If there is no open chat window for the given contact, just show a message notification, and the messages will be found opening the chat window for the contact. ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Solving the user forgets about presentation mode problem! (was Re: notify-osd + fullscreen + multiple monitors)
Il 07/07/2009 15:19, Praveen ha scritto: hmm.. not a bad idea though one must consider that this one initial notification will be always displayed whenever one goes fullscreen. so if i watch a lot of movies or am review/editing a presentation i would be going to fullscreen and back so many many times that each time if i get this notification i would be annoyed Praveen: did you also reply to the list? It does not look like to me but I just changed my mail client so who knows. Yes perhaps once per session per opened application (based on pid? window id?) would be sufficient. Nothing is perfect anyway, we have testing precisely for this. ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Solving the user forgets about presentation mode problem! (was Re: notify-osd + fullscreen + multiple monitors)
Il 07/07/2009 16:39, Sohail Mirza ha scritto: The limitations of the form-factor may require entirely a different solution to common problems. This much is apparent when comparing Ubuntu Desktop to Ubuntu Netbook Remix. The EEEPC 1000HE has a 10'' screen on which the default gnome desktop is reasonable, my girlfriend has one. But certainly when one is just browsing, sending the browser to full screen is more comfortable. In general full screen may be more efficient, because compiz can be disabled. And also I hate anything but the black borders when I am watching a movie. The panels are out of question :) Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Solving the user forgets about presentation mode problem! (was Re: notify-osd + fullscreen + multiple monitors)
Il 07/07/2009 17:34, Sohail Mirza ha scritto: Weighed against the configuration set and dialogues being proposing, I still think that full-screen = I'm busy is a reasonable assumption to make with the vast majority of the user population. I would venture a guess that most users don't even use, let alone understand how to, full-screen non-media applications like Firefox or monodevelop. Come on, forget about presentations, my mother does not do that. The other two full-screen apps are firefox (press F11, and I learned that from non-nerds) and the movie player. Plus flash which probably uses its own method. Just let us concentrate on movies. Do you agree that when you watch a movie you may be willing to be interrupted or not for reasons that no machine will understand at least with current technology? I mean: I have to wait for my colleague to contact me with a patch. I watch a movie in the meantime. I want to watch it fullscreen. This is no nerdy or special need. Just the fact that the two use cases (block notifications, and go full screen) are often independent even if they look related. But I think there is already general agreement on this. ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] notify-osd + fullscreen + multiple monitors
Il 07/07/2009 17:40, Mark Shuttleworth ha scritto: What about putting up a notification when someone goes into fullscreen mode that notifications are enabled and will be displayed, as a reminder that they might want to disable them? This was just discussed in another thread, with he ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Updates on Login
On sab, 2009-07-04 at 15:31 -0300, Paulo J. S. Silva wrote: That is a good point. However, the likelihood of a failure in a security update that doesn't allow for a clean shutdown is very low (it never happened to me and I use Linux since 1994). I know that perhaps it is overkill to talk about this right now but I hear too many voices in favour of automatic upgrades. It happened to me several times in my life that an update broke the system often in unrecoverable ways. In jaunty, the pre-latest intel update (sigh) broke Xorg, it could not start because of a problem in detecting the LVDS. I do not have any clue on how to get elder debs, so I had to wait next update and use karmic in the meantime. (Let me open a parenthesis: I could not figure out how to bring the wireless network up from command line because iwconfig seems to be a no-action nowadays - NetworkManager does not have a command line interface; usability in extreme situations should be taken more into account perhaps by making a specific investigation on the current system). You can now jump on me and say aha! that was not a security upgrade, but the truth is that it happened several times since when I started to appreciate upgrades (debian potato) and I can't tell when an upgrade was for security reasons because I never cared to make a distinction. I think many already stated this, but if the plan is to do any automatic upgrade, then it MUST be backed up by a sane rollback policy. It just suffices to keep a copy of the very basic needs of apt, and a copy of the old debs in the systems with their configuration, we have everything in place from the technical side. OTOH, there is the problem that an upgrade may convert e.g. configuration files to new formats. But this is not going to happen for a security upgrade, that could be made into a strict requirement. I recall some discussion about automatized revert on ubuntu-devel-discuss, but is the idea still appreciated? Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] System / hardware indicator
Il giorno mar, 16/06/2009 alle 15.48 +0200, Vincenzo Ciancia ha scritto: On 16/06/2009 Mark Shuttleworth wrote: Ted Gould has been a proponent of a system / hardware indicator, and I've been working on how to handle things like USB-unmount and Bluetooth-connect and am coming round to the idea. What do you guys think? If there's support for the idea, we could do a round of design work and present it here for more detailed discussion. Do you mean like the messaging indicator but for system messages? If so, would it also handle update-manager interactions? I think this has been proposed by many both here and on the u-m bug so there should be wide consensus. I'd love it. If I misunderstood what you said, perhaps some more detail is needed. Vincenzo You asked me to discuss this topic in _this_ thread, and here I am :) As you can see I already posted the above. To make it clear, it would be nice IMHO if some form of system indicator could replace the infamous popup. I also suggested in this time window that notifications in the panel could be something like the FUSA, with text instead of an icon, and if you are low on screen space, you can right click on it and make it an icon. Then, whatever icon it's used, it will be clear since *the user* turned text into icons and saw the icon the first time. More details on an earlier post: https://lists.launchpad.net/ayatana/msg00253.html . I posted a mockup for the update-notifier recently which I think would fit for a system indicator (did not add it to the wiki yet, sorry) here is a pseudo-screenshot https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NotificationDesignGuidelines/Comments?action=AttachFiledo=gettarget=text-notification.jpg and the idea, if extended to system indicator, is as follows: if there is only one message pending then it has a short title written in bold, like A system update is required in the screenshot (perhaps terrible english :)). I imagine that clicking on it pops up a short menu with options like initiating interaction (e.g. update the system...) or remind me later. If there are more than one message, the text in bold may read something like System events pending and clicking on it reveal a menu divided in various areas, like the system menu in our default panel. Each area has perhaps no submenus, but a non-selectable bold entry for the message itself, and the actions below it. Every message can obviously have its own menu. E.g. Your house is burning remind me later would not make sense :) Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ayatana] Empathy is not in line with the much discussed guidelines
[CC-ing ayatana, if this is wrong just tell me] Today I tried empathy on my karmic testing system. Here are the scores. The last part IS VERY IMPORTANT please read it too. Don't thake my comments as angry, I'm just in a hurry. +1 The first time I launch it, it offers me to import accounts from pidgin. Very good -1 It crashes immediately later 0 I restart it and it does not crash, so that I can't report it -1 It does not allow me to open any kind of chat, it says something related to EMPATHY_IS_CONTACT(contact) failed +1 I close it, reopen, and it starts working. This should be 0, as it is already supposed to work, but I want to be nice on it. -1 I receive a notification that the IRC bot has recognised me. Please find a way to avoid this! Pidgin has a couple of plugins to handle the rough corners of IRC and at least identification MUST be done properly (it should not need any plugin in principle). THE IMPORTANT PART -1 It flashes the notification area. THIS IS FORBIDDEN. Update notifier can not do that. Why should empathy do that? This must be fixed. -1 It does NOT OPEN A POPUP on new messages. When the infamous update-notifier popup was decided, it was argued that pidgin already did that. I am a pop-up hater and the IM client is the only exception. In fact, for IM a pop-up may be desired. This is because if I start the IM client chances are I *want* to be disturbed and if a contact calls me I *want* to interact immediately. So ehm, I know it should not come from me but can we have the popup back? The last 2 behaviours SHOULD BE opt-in for those who love them, of course. TOTAL SCORE: -3 it can do better with very little effort :) Now testing it properly and will report bugs. Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Empathy is not in line with the much discussed guidelines
On mar, 2009-06-23 at 18:04 +0200, Nicolò Chieffo wrote: Sayersandrew-ubuntu-de...@pileofstuff.org wrote: who don't feel like compiling their IM client from source every day. you are definitely right, anyway now empathy is actively developed, and the only way to test it is git Nah. I already wast enough resources to test karmic. If you want me to test empathy you have at least to provide a ppa whose code is guaranteed to land in ubuntu soon or later. Not to be polemic at all, I just want to pose a limit on how much energy I donate to ubuntu :) Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Empathy is not in line with the much discussed guidelines
On mar, 2009-06-23 at 16:58 +0100, Andrew Sayers wrote: Could you give us some idea of when a testable version will land in Karmic? We've got two months left until the final decision on whether this becomes as significant a part of Ubuntu as Firefox or OpenOffice, so it would be nice to have more than a few weeks of testing by people who don't feel like compiling their IM client from source every day. You are being utopistic. The decision has already been taken. I would not bet a cent on the possiblity that empathy does not become default even if as broken as it is right now. This is why I ran to testing as early as possible. I would love if programs that we test during alphas could be declared not ready but I NEVER saw ubuntu going back. The only decision I saw going back was the re-introduction of kdvi in jaunty, which was then removed at a very late time before release without leaving time to test the feature addition to okular that *supposedly* would have let it replace kdvi. From that date, I learned not to hope in such an obvious thing as let's try it, as we are testers, and then decide. If you try it, you buy it. If someone wants to prove me wrong, a good way would be to fix a set of target features and bugs for empathy and guarantee to us all that if such a minimum quality standard is not met then empathy will be dropped for karmic. Please don't pollute the list by posting angry replies to this. You are free to do so, but first, read: I love ubuntu and am doing as much as I can for it. Above I am a bit polemic but I think I am telling the truth. If I am wrong, glad to be corrected and to note the eventual information sources that I do not know right now. Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Empathy is not in line with the much discussed guidelines
On mar, 2009-06-23 at 19:00 +0200, Sense Hofstede wrote: Hello, There is an PPA at https://launchpad.net/~telepathy/+archive/ppa. Unfortunately it gives you 2.27.2, instead of the latest 2.27.3. It is a start, though, and I expect 2.27.3 to be uploaded soon. Very kind of you. Will test that one, but is it the code that will land in ubuntu more or less? Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Empathy is not in line with the much discussed guidelines
On mar, 2009-06-23 at 19:13 +0200, Nicolò Chieffo wrote: as I was saying 2.27.3 is already old. You need to be synchronized to a current git version of empathy, weather it is self compiled or from an external PPA. ah, ok so I will not test the PPA :) Didn't check the version number. Anyway most problems are not in empathy, but somewhere in telepathy protocol managers (for instance the current ubuntu version of telepathy-butterfly does not work) Also for this reason a ppa would be very comfortable. Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] What most people would find useful (was: Re: Updates on Login )
Il giorno gio, 18/06/2009 alle 18.25 -0400, Scott Kitterman ha scritto: These would also probably need some additional QA to reduce the risk for users installing the update with no chance to consider if it would be a good update for them. I will trust no human on that :) If you have a way to prove that I can get rid of an unwanted side effect it's ok. E.g: just find a way (unionfs??) to install the upgrades *and* allow me to boot a system *without* them. It may be difficult or easy but provable safety is the only way to go. For security upgrades, that do not typically induce file format change (like e.g. major updates of evolution), using an unionfs with the updates seems viable. That'd open the way to automatic security upgrades and stop the whole thing. For bug fixes, it may even be every six months. That way, perhaps, it would not become an option to release things broken. Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Updates on Login (was: Re: [Fwd: Update manager])
Il giorno mer, 17/06/2009 alle 09.26 -0500, David Siegel ha scritto: I auto-login, so I would not use this feature, but let's not think of gurus like us The argument that's for gurus or power users keeps popping up :) This can not be applied here: auto-login is enabled by checking an innocent checkbox during install, and I am sure this is more interesting for non-power-users who have only one user account on their machine. Not that I do not find the idea interesting, it's just an observation on that particular argument that I don't like too much. V. ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Idea: letting users of the testing distribution participate in testing and report feedback on different UI choices if they wish
Il giorno mer, 17/06/2009 alle 19.23 +0200, Martín Soto ha scritto: 2009/6/16 Vincenzo Ciancia cian...@di.unipi.it If we manage to come this far (and I hope we do at some point) this is already a usability experiment. We'd have to design it properly though, so that results can be considered valid. Yes. Let me remark that the idea of putting some polls (not necessarily usability related) in the distribution is to avoid self-selection so that would be a big benefit. We could use the testing distribution as a testing environment only for those users who, prompted by a clear question (a popup window maybe :P) when they install karmic (or karmic+1, I do not think we are in time for k), decide to participate in usability tests, involving changing the system in various ways for a week or so and then report feedback in a number-crunchable way. This is an excellent idea. We may have to delay discussing it, however, until we have something to actually test. Otherwise, we'll probably be discussing at a too abstract level. M. S. Yes and I am still waiting for some more detail on the system-indicator, in particular if it is going to include updates or not. Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Mumbles Brings (More) Growl-Like Notifications to Linux
Il giorno mer, 17/06/2009 alle 11.35 -0700, ajmctaggart ha scritto: I am sure many of you have already seen this, I for one have not. Seems like it would be of interest to those working on notifications... http://lifehacker.com/5293943/mumbles-brings-more-growl +like-notifications-to-linux There is an interesting point here: growl is a osx app, and it allows clicking on notifications. Ubuntu does not allow this, aiming to improved usability, and in that page the author also complains that ubuntu notifications can't be clicked while mumbles can. Now it's hard for me to explain this in written english but, do you remember the time when linux users told osx users that the mac was featureless? And they responded it's because of usability? The student getting better than the master it seems :) V. ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] [Fwd: Re: Update manager]
On 16/06/2009 Ryan Prior wrote: I don't see the popups as intrusive. No information is being sent outside the computer. A window is being opened so that you see it, because it very important and it absolutely needs your attention. It's not as though some foreign entity is intruding upon your computer, and it's not as though it interrupts whatever work you're doing. Can the folks who find this pop-under to be very intrusive better explain precisely what they find intrusive about it? Also, is this in violation of the Gnome HIG? An unrequested popup, and a pop-under in particular, is traditionally considered something that must be fake, because in the www it is used as a spam and fraud device. This is why we have a popup blocker in firefox. Apart from this, a pop-up is in the middle of alt+tab order, and it is very unprofessional if it pops up while my boss is looking at my pc to see my work. Not that I could not live with it *if* it was absolutely disabled when I am busy in FUSA. But still I think that a different way to notify. Even a non-disappearing, dismissable notification, which could then have actions because nobody has to run to select those, would be better than the pop-under because it is very small and does not go to the window list. Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] [Fwd: Re: Update manager] - a secure way to ask for information
On 16/06/2009 Natan Yellin wrote: A few websites use a similar trick and display a custom image which the user chooses. I think it's a bit of a better solution than using a phrase, because people are more likely to notice if it changes. Hmm, if I enter fatti non fummo a viver come bruti and you (the malicious program) have no idea of what it could be, sure I notice if it changes. The problem with an image is that it would make the installation process much less comfortable if you want to find your own image but I am not totally against it. You can even have both. Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Getting users to care (was Re: [Fwd: Re: Update manager])
Il giorno mar, 16/06/2009 alle 17.17 +0200, Martín Soto ha scritto: Would you mind showing us some evidence of said overwhelmingly negatively reaction? From what I've seen on the mailing lists so far, those complaining about the update pop-under mostly belong to a small, yet very vocal group of power users. Please, let's keep the this is something that only power user like/dislike old argument out of this discussion. I see this is not your intention, but as we are all power users this is an effective dialectic technique to lower the value of our observations. Also, I already said this elsewhere. Either design a poll, or don't say that a group of persons is small. You don't have a scale for comparison. The whole launchpad can be considered a small group of users. Ubuntu developers are a small group of users. If you think you didn't see the numbers yet and want people to start an advertising campaign to send angry users that may not have the will to report the bug here, I can do that (yes it's a joke). Let me also remark that the bug had some 20 duplicates. These are persons that _did not know_ the problem before and went to report. Hence they don't belong to a small group as you said. I am one of these. Now let's get to the point of which evidence we have that people do not like popups in general. For update-notification, if you want evidence, again, create a poll and find a way to gather the opinion of users. I won't do that because I already have good experience. The typical computer user I saw in my life tend to close immediately any popup without reading it. Especially if it's not a good moment to do what is requested. This is my experience, I teached ubuntu to many, and I taught courses at university to non-computer scientists, (I was forced at the time to use windows, and here I could have a good sample of behaviours w.r.t. popups) but I am not an usability expert. If you accept my past experience as an example, my impression is that if a non-power-user sees a popup requesting to do an action and it's not the right moment, she closes the popup. After a while, closing the popup becomes an habit. And it's never used again, it's just considered an annoyance. If doing upgrades was a do it in 5 seconds, and be sure not to have consequences kind of thing, probably users would learn to just click ok instead of closing the window. But it's not the case. Power users are often adamant about having absolute control over their computers, This is NOT the case in the problem we are talking about. We want a cleaner, less disturbing system. We are not asking for esotheric feature or millimetric customization. I even reject the solution of editing the appropriate gconf key quite because, even if I know how to customize my system down to the bare hardware, I _prefer_ to use the standard settings of ubuntu. Sometimes I don't even change my background for a long time after a new installation. so it is no surprise that some of them find it very irritating when their computers open windows without their explicit consent. I'm not sure, however, that this is the case for most users (myself included, and I'm a power user, for sure) So you are a power user too, you don't feel irritated by the pop-up, and this proves what? . I would expect most people to just confirm the updates and keep going with their lives Are you saying that you really NEVER experienced an upgrade that creates a problem? I use my computer to work. Sometimes I just can't afford the risk that the thing breaks, even in minor aspects. E.g. when I am preparing a presentation or I am under a deadline. For this reasons the popup cannot be that frequent, it'd be annoying to people like me. But this creates a time-window for worms. If any. , but, as I said, if you have clear evidence that contradicts my expectation, I'll be glad to see it. Clear evidence will be obtained only when studies will be published. All of this is based on a study which has not been published. I do not work in usability and do not have the resources to do a test, but if you find any, and you need some cooperation, I'll be glad to help designing some experiments. Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ayatana] a radically different solution for updates and reboot requests
Paulo J. S. Silva ha scritto: Hi, Sorry for the long message, must I need to set some context before going to the point. I am trying to bring the discussion on update-manger changes, with its new pop-under behavior to this forum as suggested in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-notifier/+bug/332945/comments/384 I originarily wanted to add comments to the wiki page, but it is oriented to notifications while this is a specific idea for the notification manager, so I finally deleted it from the wiki and I post it here. The proposal is very simple: still create a persistent notification in the notification area. However, this is not an icon, but rather a text in the same font of the panel menus and the user-switch applet. Clicking on it revelas some choices of actions to do, thus making it effectively a pop-up menu which appears in the notification area. Advantages: - it does not invade the user's own space (I like Peter's concept a lot) - it is immediately clear what the system is saying to the user - it is a persistent notification - it does not interfere with alt+tab - it effectively uses that big grey area between the notification area and the menus, instead of disturbing other areas of the screen Disadvantages: - it may be a problem on crowded panels. An option (like FUSA) would be necessary to change the text back into an icon. - no overlap would be allowed hence it is good for a few critical applications. This can even be considered an advantage: I do not see other use cases than alarms (e.g. temperature high, reboot required, updates are available). There are very few and _likely_ if there is one active, we want the user to respond to that call, instead of presenting the next. Priorities could eventually be used (e.g. disk low will surely need to precede updates available or it gets stuck). Notice that changing the text into an icon would NOT call back the problems that have been claimed over the notification area icon (that is, difficult recognisability) for the following two reasons: 1) the user has consciously changed the behaviour and has *requested* the icon hence surely he knows what that icon means 2) ordinary users DO NOT have a crowded panel and DO NOT NEED to change the setting. Here is a screenshot https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NotificationDesignGuidelines/Comments?action=AttachFiledo=gettarget=text-notification.jpg The same method can also be used by reboot requests. 2) Since the notifications are transient in nature, queue them in the indicator applet (that would require the indicator-applet to be in the panel by default). I'd love this too, because the point of the update-notifier kind of notifications is that the system has something to say to you, and it wants it to be synchronous. That's instant messaging. Let me explain the motivation for this proposal. first, I must emphasize that I like the new notify-OSD framework and the will to clean up the notification area. I completely agree that a icon only belongs to the application area if it represents a running application and allows some constrained iteration with this application, like in media players (where you can skip a song, for example, without opening the full application). The old behavior of update-manager use it to present a permanent notification that is not tailored to a running application. This is not a good use for that area. However, pop-up or under is not a good idea either. It is usually considered very annoying by many users, see the hundreds of comments on the bug report cited above and the tens of duplicates it has. The above summarises the mood of many. Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] a radically different solution for updates and reboot requests
Il giorno lun, 15/06/2009 alle 11.09 +0200, Vincenzo Ciancia ha scritto: I originarily wanted to add comments to the wiki page, but it is oriented to notifications while this is a specific idea for the notification manager, so I finally deleted it from the wiki and I post it here. Here it should read while this is a specific idea for the update manager (hence it does not belong to the wiki page, that's it). Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] Notifications are annoying when typing in the upper right corner of a window
Il giorno lun, 01/06/2009 alle 10.30 -0400, Celeste Lyn Paul ha scritto: kwin can also know when a dropdown or context menu is open. i've been looking into the possibility of delaying notifications which occur during these types of interactions for n seconds. several researcher groups have found significant benefits for these types of computer-mediated interruptions. At an intuitive level can we say that when dropdowns or context menus are opened, the user is typically doing something short and that requires focus (such as filling in a form or selecting a menu entry) and then it is better not to interrupt the user in that precise moment? I see that when I am chosing a menu entry I wouldn't normally move my eyes to look at a notification. Do you have pointers to some document by these research groups? thanks Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
Re: [Ayatana] notify-osd feedback
Il giorno lun, 27/04/2009 alle 15.47 +0100, Mark Shuttleworth ha scritto: Martin Pitt wrote: Hello, just received an interesting comment about notify-osd, and some deficiencies which come up a lot: http://martinpitt.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/the-stracciatella-gnome-session/#comment-364 The comment right after is interesting, too :-) Sorry for jumping in the middle of threads I perhaps didn't read entirely, but all these judgments on notifications and pop-unders are in my opinion missing two important points and a minor one important n. 1) notifications disappear. That's by design. However, since I installed jaunty, I have seen a notification bothering me with some this network is .local something and this is bad long message that I never managed to read (fancy understanding it) every time I connect to the local network. I have no way to let the notification stay longer (e.g. mouseover) and I have no way to find it in a message log of some sort. I just feel irritated by a message that appears and does not leave me the time to understand it. And I am patient with computers, you can imagine my mother. She just would not care about reading such a message. But perhaps you're already addressing these points. important n. 2) pop-ups and pop-unders, even minimised windows, break the alt+tab order, hence they are doomed to disturb the user. less important) even though one may click trough the notification, I fear that users will not understand this and just wait for the notification to disappear: there is no other case of click-transparent window that I know of, hence I don't expect users to trust that they can really click below an existing window, even if it looks transparent. Perhaps avoiding mouse (by moving) would be better, but it would also look a bit funny in the negative sense of it. Vincenzo ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
