Created attachment 220009 [details]
Image, picturing how OSDs could be merged into regular notifications

I propose changing current OSDs with regular notifications.

The only difference from regular notifications, is that would NOT appear in tray bar.

Also only one notification (example code attached) would be used and updated for all messages, for which OSD now appears.
This prevents notification spam and user instantly gets feedback for his/her actions.

=== Reasoning ===

When I first turned on Gnome Shell the only thing that was out of place for me was OSDs.
And I couldn't get used to them till now.

Also, when I first updated Gnome Shell to 3.2 and tried using Fn+Down (PlayPause) I saw a intimidating and very noninformative OSD with a big cross. Think anything you want, but my first thought was: "I cannot use this feature anymore?!". Using notifications would enable Gnome to show a helpful message like "Launch your media player before playing media" or "No media player is running at the moment", and "that's why we cannot do anything about your shortcut".

=== Volume change ===

Notification features an icon and a slider, which can be interacted with to change volume further with finger or mouse.

From ability to interact with slider tablets would get most benefit as pressing volume up/down and then changing volume with a finger is easier than clicking volume button in panel and then adjusting volume.

=== Media button errors ===

Informative one liner explaining either why this action cannot be carried out or what you need to do before doing this action.

=== Chat in #gnome-design ===

simukis: Are there any changes to OSD (http://minus.com/m6tBNg2Jn/) for Gnome 3.6?
andre_: simukis, should there be some? :) what's the intention of your question?
simukis: andre_: What bugs me is why it isn't integrated with regular notifications.
simukis: andre_: Now that in 3.6 notifications looks a bit more like OSDish, design could be unified.
simukis: will look*
aday: simukis, you can file bugs against gnome-icon-theme-symbolic
aday: simukis, oh sorry, misunderstanding. an osd is a bit different from a notification...
fmuellner: well, conceptually I'd say they are very different :)
fmuellner: (feedback to user action vs. notifying about an external event)
simukis: fmuellner: You are probably correct, but for me (as user) it still looks a bit out of place. When I first saw it I just couldn't understand why would you make a new way of feedback.
fmuellner: simukis: not sure what you mean with "new way of feedback" - both notifications and osds have been around for years
fmuellner: it's just that they use a fairly similar style now
simukis: Also a feedback when no media players are running and media buttons are pressed is horribly not informative and intimidating (i cannot press this button?). While notification with „Sorry, no media players are running“ would be much more friendly.
fmuellner: tbh, I have no idea what happens when you press media buttons - never had any of those :)
simukis: Sorry, I don't know how it was several years ago in stock setup as I used stock ubuntu where volume changing and notifications from applications looked the same.
simukis: fmuellner: as for media buttons: http://i.minus.com/iu0qsDcACb6rN.png
fmuellner: mmh, yeah
fmuellner: looks a bit scary
fmuellner: otoh, popping up a notifications on each "illegal" key press sounds like a pretty nasty way of creating notification spam
simukis: fmuellner, I'm pretty sure that you can just update a notification to not show a new one. The only problem would be to make that notification not appear in tray.
fmuellner: yeah, but that's not really a problem - there's a flag for apps to request that
fmuellner: simukis: so I'd say file a bug against gnome-settings-daemon
fmuellner: (which provides the OSDs)
simukis: (by the way, example code I've written: https://gist.github.com/cf4656ff19f4bd0f7351)
simukis: fmuellner: Will do.
fmuellner: simukis: I think it's fair to assume that we do want a progress bar there, not a string representation :)
simukis: lmuellner: I think so too, it was to demonstrate that it is possible to update previous notification content without spawning new ones.
fmuellner: simukis: the problem is just that there are no progress bars in notifications :)
simukis: fmuellner: If it is possible to coin such custom notifications like empathy and rythmbox uses, then I'm sure that it should be possible to make one with a progress bar too. In case it is not possible (yet) and if people like my proposal then I'm sure that some changes in notification system could be made.