GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 315508
Note windows are no longer always-on-top
Last modified: 2014-04-15 02:59:46 UTC
Version details: 2.11.93, from Gentoo ebuild with md5sum of 7709e87afffb6847106eb3a230950b1d Distribution/Version: Gentoo 2005.1 Create a sticky note and switch to a window which overlaps the new note. There are situations in which I depend on the sticky notes to be visible at all times, and this new behavior is quite obnoxious...
My idea of the ideal solution: (a) add a preferences checkbox for "always on top" (b) add a preferences checkbox for "click on desktop hides note windows". not sure if the latter is new functionality or not, but I just noticed it in this version...
I think the behaviour of sticky-notes in Gnome 2.10 was about right (always on top, click on applet for new note/hide, right-click for applet menu). The current behaviour makes them somewhat useless, as they quickly get obscured by other windows. As the idea of *sticky*notes is to remind you of things, having to remember to click the applet every now and again seems a bit counter-intuitive.
Just a quick pointer (in case you didn't already know): If you press the key combination <alt>+<space> with the Sticky Notes window active, the usual top-left window menu thingy comes up - and it includes the "On Top" option. This isn't remembered between sessions (or at least I'm fairly sure it's not!) and doesn't help with the "click on desktop hides note windows" "feature" described earlier...
I think we could accept a patch to reimplement some form of the old functionality, perhaps only exposed through GConf in some way (and documented as an easter egg). Otherwise this I think this is WONTFIX.
This is related to bug #311644.
*** Bug 311644 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 338504 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Created attachment 64138 [details] [review] Makes the applet a display toggle, and enables configuration of startup visibility of notes. I've created a patch that makes the stickynotes applet much easier for me to use. The inspiration for the patch came from bug #335483. The patch adds 2 pieces of functionality. 1: Clicking on the applet on the panel will toggle the notes' visibility. This is configurable by the gconf key "/apps/stickynotes_applet/settings/notes_applet_is_toggle". When the value is false, the applet behaves as usual. When the value is true, clicking on the applet when the notes are visible, will hide the notes. (Works best when notes are sticky. Suggestions for improvement welcome) 2: The gconf key "/apps/stickynotes_applet/settings/notes_displayed_on_startup" controls whether the notes are displayed when the applet is loaded. I'd also like the "stay-on-top" functionality, so I'll look into fixing that as well. The patch works on 2.12.[0-3] and 2.14.[0-1] versions of gnome-applets. I'll accept suggestions to make it better. I'll even try to add the configuration options to the preferences panel if you'd like me to. Testing is most welcome. Regards, Håkon
Got referred here via https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/gnome-applets/+bug/61919 . Everytime I click on a file on the desktop, my sticky notes dissapear, which annoys me bc then I forget about them... I'd really want to see the always-on-top behavior back. As in: *notes will be behind running programs *notes will be above desktop picture, and stay there if desktop / a file[*] on the desktop is clicked. > I'll even try to add the configuration > options to the preferences panel if you'd like me to. I'd really like to see the configuration options in the preferences panel. [*] May be if you just fix the applet so that a. notes stay there if a file/folder on the desktop is clicked and b. notes will hide if the desktop background is clicked. ? thanks
Hi, I'd be willing to write a patch that fixes these issues if there was any chance of getting it integrated (Hakon's patch doesn't seem to have received any attention?): - Make click-on-desktop configurable - Make always-on-top configurable - Make toggle-by-applet-click configurable (or better: always on) - Remember visibility of notes Please notify me, since I think that in its current state the applet is quite useless.
Three years and no fix? There's two people willing to offer a patch but no Gnome developer is listening? Clicking on the desktop and having your notes disappear is extremely annoying and *NON-USER FRIENDLY* so what can we do to get the ball rolling?
Michael C. I understand your point. But this is linux - free. what is free is a catstrophe. I've even seen some contributions from people defended the idea that notes should be hidden as soon as you click at destkop (that is nonsens!). You want to see notes, not hide them! (We say at work: who the frak is the product manager?:-) There is no such thing as connect clicks on destkop with another application using hardcoded feature (optionally should be in place). I hpe developers will add this feature in early 3 years...
Created attachment 136462 [details] [review] remove desktop hiding functionality I got fed up enough with the "clicking on desktop makes notes hide" mentality. I've attached a patch that removes the functionality. It's not worth a preferences toggle. No one would ever want to use this.
I want to add that the patch is against gnome-applets-2.26.1.
This bug has been around for ~4yrs ! and the devs cant decide on this? Not a single gnome-applet dev has responded on this bug report since 3 yrs, really dissapointing. If this app is no longer maintained , shouldnt sticky notes be depricated? This makes no sense , why the applet has been made to behave this way. If a sticky note is placed , its because the user wants a *constant visible* reminder , for any reminder to behave as a hidden function users have the option to set alarms or memos in Evolution. The present behavior really defeats the purpose of a "sticky" note. @Devs : Kindly respond on bug reports , there are patches available , either commit them or if you guys reply a wont fix , people can move on to different apps!
(In reply to comment #3) > Just a quick pointer (in case you didn't already know): If you press the key > combination <alt>+<space> with the Sticky Notes window active, the usual > top-left window menu thingy comes up - and it includes the "On Top" option. I also think it should be configurable if notes should stay always on top. If I have something running in fullscreen, I can only choose to show all notes (by clicking on the notes applet) or my fullscreen app (by clicking the app, but then all notes go into the background), but not some single notes (which is useful for me as I have so many notes that my screen is full of them and I can't see anything behind if all of them are shown). The Alt-Space solution mentioned above is a useful thing, but I'm thinking of something more user-friendy, like a small button for each note, besides the lock button.
Created attachment 152067 [details] [review] "Always on top" buttons for each note, see comment #17 > The Alt-Space solution mentioned above is a useful thing, but I'm thinking of > something more user-friendy, like a small button for each note, besides the > lock button. Here is a little patch (for v2.28.0) that implements my suggestion. I used two images for this button: * gnome-panel/stickynotes/pixmaps/always-on-top.png which can be downloaded at http://rohieb.name/stuff/always-on-top.png * gnome-panel/stickynotes/pixmaps/not-always-on-top.png which can be downloaded at http://rohieb.name/stuff/not-always-on-top.png
*bump* Any thoughts about the patch?
It appears Sticky Notes were deprecated, see: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2009-April/msg00265.html (I'm not a developer for this component, but this seems like it's obviously obsolete at this point)