Re: Notification Area guidelines

[Malcolm Tredinnick <malcolm commsecure com au>]

On Fri, Mar 14, 2003 at 01:19:09AM -0500, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 14, 2003 at 12:12:09AM -0500, John wrote: 
> > Maybe I'm being silly, but I think that programs should only have an
> > icon in the notification widget if they actually have something to
> > notify the user about. :)  (I'd like it to behave more like an event
> > queue for the user.)
> > 
> > I envisage icons appearing if new mail or instant messages arrive,
> > a calendar alarm comes due, or an incoming call is detected by
> > GnomeMeeting.  When such an event occurs, then the appropriate
> > subdued and elegant icon would pop up on the notification area if
> > it is not already there.  Once the user responds to the event, it
> > would disappear from the notification area.
> 
> I've thought the same thing. It seems very simple and easy to
> understand.
> 
> It seems like the idea of the notification area in XP is:
> 
>  - notify the user of events without being as obtrusive as a dialog

Without attempting to channel the XP motivations (and I have never used
it, so I don't know what the behaviour is), one way the notification
area as described in this thread is better than a dialog box is that a
silly flashing icons do not go away. I have lost count of the number of
times some dialog box has popped up while I'm typing away in some other
window, grabbed the focus, I've hit <Return> or <Space> and then
realised that I have just blown away some dialog box that may have been
informative and interesting to read. A notification icon that sits in a
spot on my panel until I am ready to attend to it feels like a clear
improvement in this respect.

Malcolm

-- 
A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.