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Bug 320355 - make notification "bubble" optional
make notification "bubble" optional
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: rhythmbox
Classification: Other
Component: general
0.9.x
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: RhythmBox Maintainers
RhythmBox Maintainers
: 320414 324133 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2005-10-31 21:52 UTC by pavel
Modified: 2006-01-08 01:59 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
patch from ML (10.62 KB, patch)
2005-11-22 14:06 UTC, James "Doc" Livingston
none Details | Review
updated patch (10.68 KB, patch)
2005-12-03 14:08 UTC, James "Doc" Livingston
none Details | Review
updated patch (16.33 KB, patch)
2006-01-02 11:07 UTC, Jonathan Matthew
none Details | Review
another updated patch (17.32 KB, patch)
2006-01-02 11:43 UTC, James "Doc" Livingston
committed Details | Review

Description pavel 2005-10-31 21:52:14 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.
Comment 1 Michaël Arnauts 2005-11-05 12:40:25 UTC
*** Bug 320414 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 2 Norman Jonas 2005-11-21 23:24:32 UTC
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.
Comment 3 James "Doc" Livingston 2005-11-22 12:39:41 UTC
Rhythmbox doesn't currently use libnotify, it implements it's own notification
bubbles.
Comment 4 Norman Jonas 2005-11-22 13:53:14 UTC
Then I am sorry. I read something on the mailing list about a libnotify patch
and thought it had been applied.
Comment 5 James "Doc" Livingston 2005-11-22 14:06:31 UTC
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.
Comment 6 Amadeus 2005-11-24 10:59:09 UTC
So this bug is about a --disable-notification-bubbles configure option?
Comment 7 pavel 2005-11-24 15:41:36 UTC
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...
Comment 8 Christophe Fergeau 2005-11-24 15:45:15 UTC
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).
Comment 9 Amadeus 2005-11-24 16:01:50 UTC
I don't understand why some don't want it to be optionable.
Comment 10 Christophe Fergeau 2005-11-24 16:03:25 UTC
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.
Comment 11 Amadeus 2005-11-24 16:14:35 UTC
What about a GConf option instead of the Expert Tab?
Comment 12 Evandro Giovanini 2005-11-24 16:51:58 UTC
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. :)
Comment 13 Teppo Turtiainen 2005-11-24 17:55:22 UTC
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.
Comment 14 Bastien Nocera 2005-11-24 18:48:07 UTC
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.
Comment 15 Amadeus 2005-11-26 11:51:35 UTC
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?
Comment 16 pavel 2005-11-26 12:21:29 UTC
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.
Comment 17 Norman Jonas 2005-11-26 12:30:12 UTC
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 ?
Comment 18 James "Doc" Livingston 2005-12-03 14:08:34 UTC
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.
Comment 19 Steve R. Hastings 2005-12-05 21:46:09 UTC
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.
Comment 20 Zachary Dovel 2005-12-07 01:46:51 UTC
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.  ;)
Comment 21 Jacob D'Agostino 2005-12-15 00:43:10 UTC
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.
Comment 22 Jacob D'Agostino 2005-12-15 00:44:42 UTC
*** Bug 324133 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 23 Jonathan Matthew 2006-01-02 11:07:59 UTC
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.
Comment 24 James "Doc" Livingston 2006-01-02 11:43:49 UTC
Created attachment 56659 [details] [review]
another updated patch

Adds the gconf key to the schema.
Comment 25 James "Doc" Livingston 2006-01-04 03:15:53 UTC
This looks good to me, so it can probably be committed.
Comment 26 Jonathan Matthew 2006-01-04 09:50:18 UTC
OK, finally at long last committed.
Comment 27 Hidde Brugmans 2006-01-07 23:52:14 UTC
What about the option in the menu?

I agree btw, libnotify should be used, if only for consistency.
Comment 28 James "Doc" Livingston 2006-01-08 01:59:01 UTC
(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.