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Shuttleworth Proposes Overhaul of Desktop Notifications
Thelasko writes "Mark Shuttleworth is considering a controversial overhaul to the way Ubuntu manages notifications." I'm not thrilled with all of the changes proposed, which would mostly value simplicity over confusion at the expense of flexibility and permanence. But anything that would make more people read over and specifically approve the wording of error messages and other notifications is a good thing.
But anything that would make more people read over and specifically approve the wording of error messages and other notifications is a good thing.
People can't follow written instructions when dumbed down so far that a six year old can follow. What makes you think people would read what an update to an OS does?
Case in point. We sent an email to everyone in our organization, including consultants, on Thursday afternoon (1:41 PM to be exact) specifically telling people to restart their machines, not turn them off, so Microsoft's critical update could be applied. We also told them in the same email that this procedure should be followed until further notice. Here is the relevant part:
Microsoft has issued a critical security patch that corrects a vulnerability problem with Internet Explorer. Tonight, the Client Support group will start applying the patch to all desktops/laptops within the agency. Therefore, we are requiring that all users follow the recommended procedure of daily restarting workstations. Upon a successful restart of your workstation you will be at the Windows sign-on screen.
Perform these steps before you leave each day.
1) Close all open applications as you normally would.
2) Click Start button\icon on the task bar at the bottom of your screen
3) Select Shutdown from the available list of items
4) Select Restart from the list of values - This is important - you must select "RESTART"
5) Click OK - Your PC will reboot itself to the Welcome to Windows sign-on screen - from there we can apply the corrective solution
On Monday, when I checked a log file, there were roughly 30 machines in my building alone that were turned off on Friday night rather than restarted. There were others in the field who had done the same thing.
We know they restarted their machine on Thursday night as requested so for them to have their machines off would mean they had to physically change the value from Restart to Shutdown, completely ignoring the email that was sent to them 24 hours before.
Only those who truly want to know what is going on will take the time to review updates. The rest will just click a button or not bother reading what is put in front of them.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Old-school programs often had a messages window which contained notifications. You could view or dismiss it at will, and it was unintrusive. Try running xfig for that old-school feeling. In some, it was even embedded in the main window, so it was always there.
Or to get closer to the point, there's always xterm... Messages appear and scroll by eventually, but they have nothing except their existence oaasociated with them. No buttons, no links, no hideous, evil, modal dialogs and so on.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Having the notification bubbles disappear when you mouse over (well, under) them doesn't seem usable. The user will see the bubble and want to interact with it in some way. Mousing over should decrease opacity and allow the user to interact with the dialog, such as immediately remove it or click on it to bring up the application that spawned the notification. I'm very familiar with computers, and it still seems very strange to "mouse under" something.
I've had a pain in the ass time doing dual monitors. Not to mention, one of my monitors can pivot (rotate) 90 degrees.. (its nice to see 2 whole pages of text when your typing on a "long screen", instead of a widescreen) but last time I looked, there is no easy way to adjust that either..
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Dual monitor config can be a pain, it's true.
The nvidia-settings app (which should be available from the systems menu) is the easiest way I've found to do this on nvidia systems. On intel chips I've had trouble too. If you want different resolutions on each you can be in for even more pain.
Changing res without needing to restart X has definitely got better, but I'm not sure how you'd go about autodetecting and switching screen orientation on a screen like that.
Agreed, this area needs work.
Another team has started a port of Growl to MS-Windows:
http://code.google.com/p/growl-for-windows/
Given the way things are, maybe Growl should simply be port to Linux, so that the same themes can be used?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
So the entire summary is Thelasko's opinion , with a one sentence description that links to shuttleworth's blog? Perhaps a true summary of proposed changes in Ubuntu desktop notifications would have been more informative.
Well after years of posting long winded descriptions and never getting published, I started posting one sentence summaries. Of course, Murphy had to show up with his stupid law...
Anyway, I originally found the bit about this being controversial here. I decided to go straight to the source and post from Shuttleworth's blog, rather than a third party's.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
And if I where him...I wouldn't touch Intrepid with a ten foot pole. While Intrepid improved on some things, other things took a step backwards. Damn you nm-applet and pptp, curse you to hell.
Actually it's not all that bad, it just requires some more work then 8.04 did. The monitor stuff is nice, but usually I go with ATI/Nvidia depending on the card I have. I'd suggest waiting for 9.04, but hey that's me.
Use other system designs to help.
Each message needs an importance. Say 0 to 100. 100 being really important. Let user pick how important to care about. BUT ALWAYS LOG THEM. Real important will show up and be clicked on to go ahead. Un-important will just be in the log.
Don't place stupid things to "fly by".