GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 687785
Indicate updated items in the tray
Last modified: 2015-02-26 22:54:34 UTC
It would be useful to indicate which tray items have been updated. This will provide a reminder of which items still need attention. It will also provide an indication of when new messages come in while the tray is open. There is an old patch that used to do this [1]. I've been told that it shouldn't be too hard to update it. :) This bug ties in with other plans that we have for the message tray [2]. [1] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=182203&action=edit [2] https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/Guidelines/MessageTray/#A3.8_Roadmap
I'll try this one.
Created attachment 228449 [details] Look with initial focus
Created attachment 228450 [details] Look without focus
Questions for designers: - the new wireframe glow seems to be very thin, is there's a mockup of how the glow would render? - otherwise, which pixmap do you recommend to use (I used the running-indicator one) - with the initial focus border, we do not see the glow For the moment, the glow takes the space of the "focus border" which is tiny. I could put the glow right at the bottom of the message tray but would that be enough? Isn't the pixmap too thick too?
Thanks for the screenshots Stéphane. I agree that it is hard to make out the glow effect when an item is focused. Maybe Jakub can advise here.
Jakub: any hint?
The chosen visuals are fine with me. But ideally I would lower the opacity of resident messages that have been seen, rather than increase visibility of unseen/new ones. Feels like we are shouting with light everywhere.
(In reply to comment #7) > The chosen visuals are fine with me. They're barely visible!
I'm not sure about that one, we use that visual indication for selected or active items in other places, it's confusing used like that to me.
We need a better visual indication, that's for sure. Maybe we could do something with the badge instead of the whole icon as an alternative? gray out non-updated items, or color + spiky border change like in http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-packagekit/plain/data/icons/48x48/status/pk-update-normal.png the updated ones?
Stéphane I think everything along those lines would be too bold, maybe an icon overlay like a "new" star in the top right corner would work, this would need repositioning the number of messages indicator in the bottom right corner though.
Stéphane, could you post your work in progress? I'd like to try it and have a play around.
Created attachment 229581 [details] [review] messageTray: indicate updated items This provides a reminder of which items still need attention. It also provides an indication of when new messages come in while the tray is open.
Here is my preliminary patch, not meant for code review, but I still have a technical question: is it allowed for a source to send spurious (dummy) count updates? Is is the role of the indicator or the source or nobody to guard against this? just asking in case I should keep a counter with the last value... Allan: I've adjusted the background-size for the running indicator to be under the focus rectangle, but I find image too tall.
(In reply to comment #14) > Here is my preliminary patch, not meant for code review, but I still have a > technical question: is it allowed for a source to send spurious (dummy) count > updates? Is is the role of the indicator or the source or nobody to guard > against this? just asking in case I should keep a counter with the last > value... count-updated should behave like notify::count would if count was a GObject property, ie. the source should try as hard as possible to avoid emitting it when it's not necessary, but the summary item should cope with it not changing. There is one exception here: count-updated is notify::count || notify::countVisible, so you'll get some spurious updates as notifications become acknowledged. Which makes me think: should the indicator all notifications, or just notifications that were never seen (acknowledged, in code) by the user? Because in the former case, to me we're duplicating the message indicator, while in the latter case, this indicator will be rarely seen, as notifications are usually presented first in banner form. Maybe we need a third flag and counter, reporting if the notification was acted upon in any way (expanded, action button clicked, focused...) since last updated?
Thanks for the patch Stéphane. Trying this out for myself, the prelight effect doesn't seem right. We generally use it to communicate that something is active, but that isn't the case here. We need another idea for the visuals here. I still like the concept behind this bug though.
With the new notifications design [1], this bug is no longer needed. [1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/Notifications/