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Bug 452244 - Battery menu should have an "allow suspend" option that can be unchecked
Battery menu should have an "allow suspend" option that can be unchecked
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: gnome-power-manager
Classification: Deprecated
Component: gnome-power-preferences
SVN TRUNK
Other Linux
: Normal enhancement
: ---
Assigned To: GNOME Power Manager Maintainer(s)
GNOME Power Manager Maintainer(s)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2007-06-29 13:42 UTC by Siegfried Gevatter (RainCT)
Modified: 2007-06-30 15:59 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: Unversioned Enhancement


Attachments
screenshot (22.16 KB, image/png)
2007-06-29 19:00 UTC, Richard Hughes
  Details
test patch (11.14 KB, patch)
2007-06-29 19:24 UTC, Richard Hughes
none Details | Review

Description Siegfried Gevatter (RainCT) 2007-06-29 13:42:21 UTC
(This was reported by Jason Spiro in Ubuntu's BTS: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-power-manager/+bug/122929)

At Ottawa Linux Symposium, it was common to see people walking around with their laptops half-open because they didn't want them to sleep. Whether wardriving, Web serving, or music playing, some people do not want their PCs to sleep. Please add a right-click option to the battery status menu "Allow standby". It should be checked by default.

When you uncheck this option, Gnome should:

* display a dialog box:
----
Warning
----
Some laptops overheat if they cannot stand by when closed.
[ ] Do not show this again
[ OK ]
----
* change the battery status icon to a coffee mug icon (this means "computer is caffeinated and will not sleep")
* and the computer should never sleep. Whether you close the lid, or leave the computer alone for a long time, it should not sleep.
Comment 1 Richard Hughes 2007-06-29 14:06:14 UTC
What about just making the inhibit applet stop the suspend on lid close instead? The battery menu seems totally the wrong place to put this.
Comment 2 Jason Spiro 2007-06-29 18:04:52 UTC
Ah, I didn't know about the inhibit applet.  Yes, it seems a more sensible tool for this.

I guess this bug report is INVALID then?
Comment 3 Richard Hughes 2007-06-29 18:17:51 UTC
No, I'll add the dialog warning (if on laptop) and make the inhibit stop the lid action. Give me a few minutes :-)
Comment 4 Richard Hughes 2007-06-29 19:00:09 UTC
Created attachment 90893 [details]
screenshot

How about something like this?
Comment 5 Jason Spiro 2007-06-29 19:14:14 UTC
If you could make it more concise, people would be more willing to read it.

How about a simple, clean popup with no heading at the top and no timer at the bottom.  Maybe even the "ZZZ" icon on the left would be misleading.  The only text would be:

Note: Some types of laptops overheat when the lid is closed.
[ ] Do not remind me again                            [ OK ]
Comment 6 Richard Hughes 2007-06-29 19:19:28 UTC
(In reply to comment #5)
> Note: Some types of laptops overheat when the lid is closed.

What does this mean? Imagine you've not opened this bug, and you are a new user. You get a message saying that the panel might overheat. This means nothing, and the user will panic. Remember, only 0.1% of users read the help file.
Comment 7 Siegfried Gevatter (RainCT) 2007-06-29 19:20:32 UTC
I have no laptop but anyways, I like that screenshot :)

I think Jason's version isn't that clear and could be misunderstood.
Comment 8 Richard Hughes 2007-06-29 19:24:50 UTC
Created attachment 90896 [details] [review]
test patch

How about this patch guys? Does this logically make sense?
Comment 9 Richard Hughes 2007-06-29 19:40:01 UTC
I've committed this, I'll mark it as FIXED. Can you try the code from SVN pls and see if it does the right thing for you?
Comment 10 David Escott 2007-06-29 22:48:07 UTC
Gnome is going a little dialog crazy with this new notification process. I don't like this pop-up for two reasons:

a) If this warning is so important, then why wasn't I warned before I took the action (clicking on Inhibit), or better yet even added this potentially dangerous applet to my panel? 
b) "Do not show me this again." Clearly Bad.

Put the warning in the applet install as well as in the "about". Then you see the warning before you make the decision to add the applet and can make an intelligent choice. Make the tooltip something like "Do Not Sleep allow the Computer to Sleep \n Please see the About Dialog for an important safety warning."

The way you have it now reminds me of Microsoft Excel's warning when you save a file to csv format: "Some features may not be supported in csv format." No sh*t but tell me that in the format selection dialog "CSV Format [Saves only the current worksheet without formatting or formulas]" not in a dialog which interrupts my workflow when I am doing precisely the thing I intend to do.
Comment 11 Richard Hughes 2007-06-29 23:04:53 UTC
(In reply to comment #10)
> a) If this warning is so important, then why wasn't I warned before I took the
> action (clicking on Inhibit), or better yet even added this potentially
> dangerous applet to my panel?

It's probably a bad idea to bombard the user with notifications when added. Also, pointing to the applet means the applet binary has to link to libnotify and a whole number of other libraries.
 
> b) "Do not show me this again." Clearly Bad.

In what way?

> Put the warning in the applet install as well as in the "about". Then you see
> the warning before you make the decision to add the applet and can make an
> intelligent choice. 

Most users are not that clever. We also only need to show the warning when on a laptop with the correct on-battery-lid event settings.

> Make the tooltip something like "Do Not Sleep allow the
> Computer to Sleep \n Please see the About Dialog for an important safety
> warning."

You can't put help text in the about dialogue - it should be in the yelp file, but yes, I understand what you are saying.

> The way you have it now reminds me of Microsoft Excel's warning when you save a
> file to csv format: "Some features may not be supported in csv format." No sh*t
> but tell me that in the format selection dialog "CSV Format [Saves only the
> current worksheet without formatting or formulas]" not in a dialog which
> interrupts my workflow when I am doing precisely the thing I intend to do.

Ahh, but you can't file a bug saying "excel lost all the text colours when saving to csv". You've got to remember the average user doesn't know what CSV stands for. I've really got to cover my back when users say "gnome-power-manager melted my laptop" :-)

Richard.
Comment 12 David Escott 2007-06-29 23:24:53 UTC
> It's probably a bad idea to bombard the user with notifications when added.
> Also, pointing to the applet means the applet binary has to link to libnotify
> and a whole number of other libraries.

Put it in the applet description so that when the user has a menu of options to choose from he sees:

"Inhibit Power Management Applet: Allows you to temporarily disable power management. Increases the risk of hardware overheating use with caution."



> 
> > b) "Do not show me this again." Clearly Bad.
> 
> In what way?

In what way is it good? See next comment:

> Ahh, but you can't file a bug saying "excel lost all the text colours when
> saving to csv". You've got to remember the average user doesn't know what CSV
> stands for. I've really got to cover my back when users say
> "gnome-power-manager melted my laptop" :-)

Right now what you face is
a) knowledgeable friend installs laptop and disables warning when demonstrating it to his friend.
b) friend never sees warning and burns down his house, same result as if you never had the warning.

"Do not show me again" is bad because it prevents you from finding the option when you most need it.

Another idea. Can you attach to dbus a timer or process so that the inhibit functionality only inhibits for 10 minutes? If the lid is closed for 10 minutes then the laptop sleeps, but its long enough to close the lid and move over to the table closer to the outlet without having to resume from sleep.

Ideally this applet would be hidden under some kind of advanced subset of the applets menu, and in the process of hiding it in that menu you can provide some warnings about the dangers involved. In the same way I wish that file formats were hidden under an advanced set of file types. The novice just sees safe normal applets like "Clock", "Menu", "Window List" in the same way they would see "Standard File Format", "Current File Format". The advanced user gets to chose from "Rot13 All visible text", "Frobnicate", "Inhibit" in the same way they would see CSV, TSV, Pipe Delimited, OpenOffice1, OpenOffice2...

If the user claims they are advanced then IMHO you just have to trust that they are.

Comment 13 Richi Plana 2007-06-30 15:59:42 UTC
Might I suggest that instead of causing the laptop to hibernate or sleep (or whatever it normally does uninhibited) that it turn off the monitor instead and do everything it can to lessen the chances of causing the laptop to overheat? I'm sure there are some things it can do (short of powering down the laptop) that isn't needed with the lid closed to avoid overheating?

Normally I use brightside to switch off the monitor before I half-close the lid (yes, I'm one of those).