GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 320355
make notification "bubble" optional
Last modified: 2006-01-08 01:59:01 UTC
Version details: 0.9.1 Distribution/Version: Ubuntu Dapper it is annoying being interrupted during plaing games and listening to rhythmbox in the background. And since I dont think you can differ between full-screen firefox and full-screen tuxracer, I'd suggest simply build in an option for that or at least offer it through gconf.
*** Bug 320414 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I think that this is a libnotify related "bug". First argument - code duplication In my opinion libnotify requires its own preferences dialog to turn on / off notifications. Users probably don't want to turn off notifications for every single app ( gaim, rhytbox, ... ). Especially users probably don't want to turn them off and on in every single app when they generally want them on but need to turn them off for a quick gaming session. Second argument - bubble visibilty is a libnotify concern I think libnotify needs some polishment. Should bubbles only be shown if the systray is visible ? What if the gnome-panel autohides - should bubbles appear which don't point anywhere, because the panel is currently not visble ? And the appearance of bubbles while running fullscreen apps is part of this and thus a bug of libnotify. Conclusion I think it would be the best idea to have a configure option ( if it is not there already ) to --disable-libnotify until this problem has been solved within libnotify itself.
Rhythmbox doesn't currently use libnotify, it implements it's own notification bubbles.
Then I am sorry. I read something on the mailing list about a libnotify patch and thought it had been applied.
Created attachment 55083 [details] [review] patch from ML This was the latest version of the patch from the mailing list. We should decide if we want to use libnotify, use our own implementation, or keep use ours when libnotify isn't present.
So this bug is about a --disable-notification-bubbles configure option?
I'd opt for a gconf option, since when I'm mostly working on the desktop I might want to have the bubbles, while I'd like to surpress it during playing games... Generally offering new switches on compilation level is not a good idea with usability in mind. Even gconf is not an optimal solution - the best would be a expert tab under preferences...
Nope, the best would be to get the notification bubble automagically know it shouldn't disturb you while you're playing games (ie fix it so that it doesn't show up when an app is in full screen mode).
I don't understand why some don't want it to be optionable.
I don't care about having it optional at compile time, though it would be better if we could avoid that. What I object to is the "expert tab" that was suggested.
What about a GConf option instead of the Expert Tab?
Misbehaviours are not fixed with preferences, that's not the GNOME way. :) My comments are already in bug #320414, but I would like to ask again: why is it good to disturb the user every 5 minutes or so while Rhythmbox plays music? Does anyone here find that information useful at all? I noticed everything else that uses a bubble are useful messages: - you have new mail, you may want to read it - you got a new message from your buddy, you may want to read it - your kernel was updated, you may want to restart the computer - new updates available, you should update your system. The common pattern is that these are all notifying the user of some action he may want to perform on his computer. In rhythmbox, the bubble says "playing Music". But I already got a notification of that - the music itself. I'll shut up now. :)
I'd just like to second what Evandro said. Notifications shouldn't be used for things that don't require user interaction. Superfluous notifications are superannoying.
I would vote for removing it altogether. The bubble is useful (and I certainly don't mind it), but it always appears too early. By the time I'm wondering what the song is, the bubble has already disappeared. The bubble should appear about 10 seconds in, and only when the change is initiated with the RB window not visible. And obviously it shouldn't appear when another app is in fullscreen. The 2 latter ones should be implemented in a library (like libnotify) so that other popup-generating applications can take advantage of it.
James wrote this to the mailinglist: > Currently the questions are: > 1) should the tray icon be optional? > 2) should the notification bubbles be optional? > 3) should we have minimise-to-tray, not have it, or make it optional?
I see Rhythmbox with it central music library concept as a music-service - just like Gaim is for IM. Furthermore I think such services should be represented by a tray icon. If you would do It like this, having Rhythmbox in the taskbar would be redundant, so I would suggest minimizing to tray while close would keep its original function. As for the notification bubble: Its basically a monitoring service, monitoring the playing song. Luckily there already is a quite popular infrastructure for monitoring; *desklets. Therefore I would say offering some kind of monitoring desklet styled like the notification overlay of quod-libet or amarok would be a good solution.
In reply to comment #15 I am just stating my thoughts on these questions : 1) should the tray icon be optional? a) common GNOME sense is that tray icons should only be used for occasional events and not for a persistant application icon. b) rhythmbox usage varies for different users. There exist interfaces to interact with rhythmbox via a desklet and via an applet making the tray icon superfluos under certain usage conditions. - As a conclusion I think the tray icon should be optional ( gconf-key ? ) and the rhythmbox applet / desklet would need to have the ability to hide the application window even when the tray icon is not enabled. This is rather complex ( imagine the applet hiding the application window and leaving rhythmbox running in the backgriund when it gets removed from panel ). Would it make sense to divide rhythmbox into a "daemon/service" ( like comment #16 also said - rhythmbox is a kind of a service ) and a user interface part ? The daemon only being run when a client connects ( applet, desklet, gui ) and being closed again when all clients are terminated ( kind of mpd - music player daemon - like behavior ). Don't take this too serious. I am just thinking about how rhythmbox would have to be constructed to be able to handle all those cases of usage threw desklet / applet / tray icon / ui ... 2) should the notification bubbles be optional? a) Reportedly there exist problems of interference with fullscreen apps b) A common ( cross-desktop and especially for GNOME ) standard notification system is not available yet ( not counting libnotify not being a standard yet ) - As a conclusion they definitly should be optional ( offering a gconf-key to disable them ) 3) should we have minimise-to-tray, not have it, or make it optional? - In my opinion the minimize and close buttons of a window should behave as expected in any app ( minimize minimizes a window leaving it in the window list, closing it terminates the app ) to let users have a consistent window usage experience. Minimizing to tray should always be done threw the tray icon ( by clicking on the icon or threw a menu option ). --- However, I think the only point that really has to be discussed for this particular bug is if the bubbles should be optional and I have the feeling that no one here has any objections to making it optional threw a gconf-key, right ?
Created attachment 55572 [details] [review] updated patch This is an updated patch, with better configure.ac changes. Regardless on the final decisions with regard to nofications being optional, I think that using libnotify if it's present is a good idea.
I absolutely hate the notification bubble. If this feature is going to be present, please make a configuration option that will let me turn it off. I know I'm playing music. I also know that if I hover the mouse over the little musical notes icon, I can see what the name of the song is. Benefit to me of having the notification: zero. I have very good peripheral vision. When I'm working (say, editing source code), suddenly there is this bright yellow flash in the corner; I *do* see it, it *does* distract me, and it *does* annoy me. Put in features like this if you want, as long as you let me TURN THEM OFF. I don't want to be rude, but I want to make sure you realize just how annoying this is to me. Also, please do not "solve" this problem by allowing me to get rid of the tray icon. I like the unobtrusive musical note icon; when I want to look at it, or hover the mouse pointer over it, it is there; but it doesn't call attention to itself. I want to have the musical note icon, but not have bright yellow popup windows. Thank you for working on free software.
Should feel proud of yourselves guys. This was the first time I ever manually modified some code of an open source project. Took me about 30 minutes to an hour to figure out the layout of Rhythmbox. Who knows, I might be forced to actually start contributing now. ;)
I'm with Norman up there, but I think that the option for this should be in Edit->Preferences (perhaps a Tray Icon tab or something) rather than gConf. Really, it's not fair to expect a user to dive into gConf to fix something that's bound to be annoying to a reasonable number of users. gConf should really be a last resort.
*** Bug 324133 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Created attachment 56657 [details] [review] updated patch Now includes an option to disable notification in the tray icon menu. I put it there because visually the notifications are a property of the tray icon, and because if you don't have a tray icon, you don't care about the option anyway.
Created attachment 56659 [details] [review] another updated patch Adds the gconf key to the schema.
This looks good to me, so it can probably be committed.
OK, finally at long last committed.
What about the option in the menu? I agree btw, libnotify should be used, if only for consistency.
(In reply to comment #27) > What about the option in the menu? The patch that got committed adds an item to the menu on the tray icon. > I agree btw, libnotify should be used, if only for consistency. We use libnotify 0.2 if it's installed. We don't have support for 0.3 yet.