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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.
Can't I just dump a stack trace to stderr and be done with it?
This looks to me almost exactly the same way KDE 4 notifications work. Just a slight change in the bubble look.
a little off topic, but some configuration tools would be nice. You know for the general public. until ubuntu can do that it's going to be no where near desktop ready for most people.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
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.
I like it. Maybe I'm alone here, but note in the article that Shuttleworth says that some notifications are important and should be treated differently (as "persistent panel indicators") - but there's no reason why you should have to click on "Wifi stopped working" and "Wifi started working", hence distracting you from what you're doing. Exploring new ideas is more important than whether they're good or bad, especially four months ahead of release.
xterm -n 8
Why?
They consume debian, not fedora.
It might be good for cross-distro relations but it seems a bit much to force them onto another, fairly well separated distro just for that.
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
Our hypothesis is that the existence of ANY action creates a weighty obligation to act, or to THINK ABOUT ACTING. That make notifications turn from play into work. That makes them heavy responsibilities. That makes them an interruption, not a notification. And interruptions are a bag of hurt when you have things to do.
Then what, exactly, is the purpose of the notifications? If not to invoke immediate action, then just send an email summary at the end of the day of all the "notifications" that happened in the last 24 hours. Short of showing changes in a network state, what would be urgent enough to show immediately, on top of all other windows, but not important enough to want to address at the same time?
"Your download is complete." I'll want to open the file.
"You have new email." I'll want to read the email.
"Your mom cried when she read your heartwarming birthday card." I'll want to pick up the phone.
What are these mysterious notifications that won't invoke a desire to perform some sort of action from the user?
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.
This is one case where I think that Microsoft has been the industry leader.
White lettering on azure field, clearly states the information, and no user can ignore it or work past it.
"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer..."
THL phish sticks
Every so often the interface should generate a dialog box that says: "Are you an idiot Y/N" If the user consistently answers no then the dialog boxes disappear. If they just click yes on every box in front of them then the operating system trojanizes its self to save other people the effort.
In Windows land, it seems just about dang near every application you install has notification annoyances when you start the PC.
1. Java Virtual machine seems to get an update every other day. This is just great, since I don't have enough java VM versions on my add/remove programs. Thanks!
2. Windows Media Player will irritate you with a media update every day, it seems.
3. Can't forget Itunes! What minor revision do you have now that doesn't seem to do much for me? Hey, what's all these extra applications you think I should install as well?
4. Macromedia Flash, ahh, can't forget that one.
5. HP Printer drivers. Just screams "me too".
6. Probably Steam has an update too.
And that's not even the usual update patches from Windows Update.
Don't turn your computer on in over a week, and you'll be going through 20 minutes of updating stuff. There are times I wish software WASN'T updated so frequently.
Hover translucency is OK, I guess. I'd rather have my cursor to push an always-translucent notification away, or squish it against the side of the screen, or do something else that actually got it out of my way. And it should shake when it's something really important. And flash! Mandatory PC speaker sound effects! Rumble mouse support! A frowny face graphic that becomes more sinister as the problem becomes more severe! Insert the warning text into the music you're listening to as replacement lyrics! THOSE BASTARDS NEED TO KNOW THIS STUFF!!!!!
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.
Because Fedora almost always does what they do, only a release before them?
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
I love this remark from the article about notifications -
They are gone like a mystery girl on the bus you didnâ(TM)t get on, and they enrich your life in exactly the same way!
The first thing I thought of was, "So...they don't."
Gnome users. Linux users who use KDE already have this and had it before OSX did.
Because the GNOME guys didn't come up with, and may not want, it.
Because this is not "linux UI development", it is Ubuntu specific UI development.
Remember boys (and girls, if the three of you are reading this) Linux doesn't have a GUI, it has various flavors of X Windows. X Windows doesn't have a window manager, it has 15. X Windows doesn't have a desk top environment, it has at least two that I know of and possibly more.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
There once was a file named mybest.gif
whose owner wanted to replace it.
That act it did not permit,
the file did not have the write bit,
and out this error did spit.
Just write software that never crashes.
I think this is just a side effect of the relatively fragmented nature of closed source software. Vendors don't work together or allow anyone to modify their products because of IP issues, which is why you don't see distro-like entities re-packaging existing apps so they'll work together nicely and upgrade nicely, as happens with open source.
Also once something's installed, it's in the vendor's interests to be as in-your-face as possible to make sure you remember it's there. Hence all the loading-at-startup splash screens that you'll often see on a Windows PC, and update notifications... because every vendor wants to individually make sure that all users know about their latest offerings.
What an eloquent rebuttal.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Seriously. I rarely use windows at all but the few times I do one thing really pisses me off completely
You're typing text and all of the sudden some crap application (windows or 3rd party) decides it wants
to popup either a splash screen or some alert dialog box.. and immediately the focus is taken away from
the text window and given to the dialog box...
Tell you what Windows assholes: Nothing you can popup is more important than what I'm typing. I don't
give a fuck whether Outlook wants to compact my inbox. Don't pop up when I'm typing. It's like slapping
the keyboard out of my hand.
Here's how notification and popups need to be solved. Have a short queue of icons representing popups
on the right upper corner of the screen. There can be a configurable message beep for each item (or one
beep for multiple items should a lot of them popup at once). The icons can't blink or otherwise try to
distract. If I click them the dialog box folds down Mac OSX style. I can configure it to expire dialog boxes
if I chose to ignore them. In that case the application gets told the dialog has been cancelled. Optionally
I can tell the application that I'm ignoring its popup and it is also then blacklisted for that dialog or for
any dialog for that matter.
The only time I can actually envision an exception to the icons not blinking or being distracting is if
the OS or an app is reporting a catastrophic event (about to lose power, disk errors etc.).
So I've been bitching about Windows but this is something I'd like anybody designing a desktop to
think about.
... and I'm going to tell you about things that already exist, that other people are working on and make it sound like it's exclusive to Ubuntu.
Thank you for your time.
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.