After an evaluation, GNOME has moved from Bugzilla to GitLab. Learn more about GitLab.
No new issues can be reported in GNOME Bugzilla anymore.
To report an issue in a GNOME project, go to GNOME GitLab.
Do not go to GNOME Gitlab for: Bluefish, Doxygen, GnuCash, GStreamer, java-gnome, LDTP, NetworkManager, Tomboy.
Bug 384509 - allow users to leave notes when screen is locked
allow users to leave notes when screen is locked
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: gnome-screensaver
Classification: Deprecated
Component: dialog
unspecified
Other Linux
: Normal enhancement
: ---
Assigned To: gnome-screensaver maintainers
gnome-screensaver maintainers
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2006-12-10 21:02 UTC by Ray Strode [halfline]
Modified: 2008-10-23 04:25 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
prototype implementation (12.09 KB, patch)
2007-02-18 01:14 UTC, Matthias Clasen
none Details | Review
slightly better (14.00 KB, patch)
2007-02-23 04:00 UTC, Matthias Clasen
none Details | Review
updated (13.65 KB, patch)
2007-02-23 05:12 UTC, William Jon McCann
committed Details | Review
unfinished patch for away messages (19.39 KB, patch)
2007-02-23 21:19 UTC, Matthias Clasen
none Details | Review
away-message.patch (19.57 KB, patch)
2007-03-20 04:36 UTC, Matthias Clasen
none Details | Review
away.glade (6.66 KB, text/plain)
2007-03-20 04:37 UTC, Matthias Clasen
  Details
away.c (2.09 KB, text/plain)
2007-03-20 04:37 UTC, Matthias Clasen
  Details

Description Ray Strode [halfline] 2006-12-10 21:02:30 UTC
I don't know if this is a good idea or not and I'm not planning on working on it right away, but I thought I'd open a placeholder bug and to get some feedback.

So one thing I often do at work is run from my cube to some other coworkers cube and inevitably find that they're out on a smoke break or in the kitchen eating a snack or whatever.

Rather than hunting them down I usually just leave a note on their whiteboard telling them what I wanted to talk to them about or telling them to come find me.

The problem with this approach is sometimes they have lost all their markers or have some complicated design already up there that I don't want to muck with.

It might be interesting if I could leave a quick note on their computer while their screen is locked that they wouldn't see until they unlocked the screen.  This has the added benefit of being more private than whiteboard note.

I don't know, just an idea... I'm not sure if it's a good one.
Comment 1 William Jon McCann 2006-12-10 21:52:06 UTC
Or perhaps, we can provide a way for them to leave a note saying where they are and when they'll be back when they lock the screen.
Comment 2 Ray Strode [halfline] 2006-12-11 03:23:43 UTC
Yea, that might work, too.  There are a couple of disadvantages to doing it that way though.

1) not users lock their screens explicitly.  A lot of people just walk away and wait for the inactivity timer

2) it forces the users that are leaving to do extra work every time they leave, but most of the time when they leave no one will be looking for them.
Comment 3 Ray Strode [halfline] 2006-12-11 03:26:27 UTC
an advantage of that approach though is that IM clients could use that as their away messages.
Comment 4 Mantas Kriaučiūnas 2007-01-14 01:28:39 UTC
Why this bug is still unconfirmed ? I think it's realy good RFE
Comment 5 Matthias Clasen 2007-02-14 18:26:12 UTC
agreed, a really nice idea
Comment 6 Matthias Clasen 2007-02-18 01:14:08 UTC
Created attachment 82771 [details] [review]
prototype implementation
Comment 7 Matthias Clasen 2007-02-23 04:00:48 UTC
Created attachment 83147 [details] [review]
slightly better
Comment 8 Behdad Esfahbod 2007-02-23 04:41:40 UTC
For the record, this is one AMAZING new feature we're gonna rule with.

Rock On Ray and Matthias!
Comment 9 William Jon McCann 2007-02-23 05:12:55 UTC
Created attachment 83148 [details] [review]
updated

Sync with head, fix the label id, don't use ok/cancel, remove ellipsis for compactness, etc

2.19 material obviously.
Comment 10 Matthias Clasen 2007-02-23 05:33:32 UTC
Thats better. Can I suggest that we strip the ellipsis from "Switch User", too ?
Comment 11 Matthias Clasen 2007-02-23 21:19:55 UTC
Created attachment 83193 [details] [review]
unfinished patch for away messages

Here is an unfinished patch for the other part of Rays proposal, allowing the user to leave an "away message" on the lock dialog. Sorry that the glade file part of the patch has some unrelated changed, only the added away-message-label is relevant.

The patch is incomplete insofar that it does not add a way to set the away 
message, since I was a bit unsure how to best do that. Putting that mesasge in gconf would feel a bit wrong, since it is meant for a single locking cycle only, typically. One option I had considered was to add an option to gnome-screensaver-command to set the message. That would of course require an addition to the dbus interface.

Thoughts ?
Comment 12 Matthias Clasen 2007-03-20 04:35:45 UTC
I have now completed the away-message patch all the way to a GConf setting.
And I have written a trivial little dialog to set it before locking the screen.
Comment 13 Matthias Clasen 2007-03-20 04:36:35 UTC
Created attachment 84935 [details] [review]
away-message.patch
Comment 14 Matthias Clasen 2007-03-20 04:37:22 UTC
Created attachment 84936 [details]
away.glade
Comment 15 Matthias Clasen 2007-03-20 04:37:43 UTC
Created attachment 84937 [details]
away.c
Comment 16 William Jon McCann 2007-03-20 04:46:20 UTC
Sweet.  Would you mind putting the away stuff into bug #384534?
Comment 17 William Jon McCann 2007-04-23 19:27:35 UTC
Committed to trunk.  Thanks.
Comment 18 Matthias Clasen 2007-04-23 19:40:58 UTC
Thanks. 

It has meanwhile occurred to me that we may want to add a way to turn this off, other than changing lock dialog themes.
Comment 19 Behdad Esfahbod 2007-04-23 22:05:32 UTC
Would someone please add this stuff to http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointNineteen/ReleaseNotes
Comment 20 David Prieto 2007-05-18 16:20:23 UTC
Sorry, but how do you actually write a note on a locked computer? I see the same old unlock dialog as before.
Comment 21 Wouter Bolsterlee (uws) 2007-08-14 13:59:44 UTC
(Reopening)

Is this really something we want in a notification bubble? I'd like to have a regular window with the away messages on my screen. Especially when using a relatively small screen (say 800x600 or even 1024x768) and multiple (perhaps longer) messages, it is hard to read what messages people left you. On the other hand, a dialog with a text area will be much more usable. And as an added bonus, you can actually select and copy/paste the text instead (e.g. email addresses) instead of discarding the message bubble on mouse click.

Oh, and it was decided that libnotify is not a hard dependency for Gnome iirc. Does that have any implications for this feature?
Comment 22 Jean-François Fortin Tam 2007-08-17 05:08:07 UTC
I'd like to know how to use this feature too. I'm running gnome 2.19.90 and I can't find it.
Comment 23 Ray Strode [halfline] 2007-08-17 14:49:59 UTC
as mentioned in comment 21, the feature depends on libnotify.  Jeff, David, do you have libnotify installed?
Comment 24 Jean-François Fortin Tam 2007-08-17 15:04:41 UTC
I do have it.
Comment 25 Wouter Bolsterlee (uws) 2007-08-17 15:27:43 UTC
You also need notification-daemon.
Comment 26 Jean-François Fortin Tam 2007-08-17 18:36:56 UTC
It is also installed already :)
Comment 27 Ray Strode [halfline] 2007-08-17 19:29:57 UTC
are you using a themed lock dialog, or the stock lock dialog?
Comment 28 Jean-François Fortin Tam 2007-08-17 20:15:01 UTC
have not themed it that I know of, it is the one provided in ubuntu 7.10 without me doing modifications or setting changes
Comment 29 Murray Cumming 2007-08-28 10:36:42 UTC
I can't find anything about this in the Screensaver preferences in Ubuntu Gutsy. Is it possible that they are building it incorrectly?

Could someone please take a screenshot (with the simple theme) to show what the preferences for this look like when this feature is enabled?
Comment 30 Murray Cumming 2007-08-28 10:55:10 UTC
> screenshot (with the simple theme) 
Sorry, I mean the default clearlooks theme.
Comment 31 Murray Cumming 2007-08-30 13:47:16 UTC
I'm retitling this to "Allow disabling of leaving notes when screen is locked" because some of you seem to want that addition. Otherwise, I don't know why this bug is still open.

I've also added
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=471845
(gnome-screensaver notes notification don't say what they are)
Comment 32 Sebastien Bacher 2007-09-21 12:37:53 UTC
The ubuntu package was lacking a Build-Depends, I've uploaded a fixed version now
Comment 33 Sebastien Bacher 2007-09-21 12:38:38 UTC
not sure if the bug should be closed, reopening for now
Comment 34 William Jon McCann 2008-05-12 21:34:24 UTC
I'm going to close this.  We should open a new bug for the ability to disable this feature.