GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 305499
DEMANDS_ATTENTION insufficiently implemented
Last modified: 2005-05-26 15:53:19 UTC
Please describe the problem: Right now DEMANDS_ATTENTION is set fairly automatically (as I understand things) for gtk applications where the window is created but not focused. however, setting it does not sufficiently distinguish the window from others such that users realize that it has been created. Because of this, windows get lost Steps to reproduce: Use gaim compiled against a new version of gtk on a new version of gnome. watch as gaim windows pop under. note how easy it is to miss that a new window has been created Actual results: if you pay close attention as a normal user, you will see the new window. this will also be true if it happens to be created on a sparsely populated desktop, such that it can be seen underneath the focused window. however, it is very easy to *not* notice that the window has been created Expected results: the window should flash in the task bar, or something similar, to draw the user's attention to its existance more strongly Does this happen every time? yes Other information: reference http://mail.gnome.org/archives/wm-spec-list/2005-May/msg00007.html and its replies
I personally use GNOME without a "Window List" applet, so I have absolutely no way of knowing when new Gaim windows are created. Typically I wind up closing a maximized web browser window and discover tons of Gaim window beneath. -s.
I think we're probably going to have to make this a tracker bug; seems to make sense to me at least. Ray Strode and Havoc have been working on blinking in the taskbar, with patches in bug 120439. The patch is intentionally somewhat hacky, because Owen is surprisingly "not completely sold that a gtk_button_flash() is a useful thing" (gtk bug 150594). Bug 120439 also covers Urgency, which appears to be important to support for gaim (see the thread Luke referenced). In particular, windows which already existed before an IM was sent but which are at the bottom of the stack of windows need to be able to grab the attention of the user when an IM is sent. (Note that we possibly could, as the WM, set the DEMANDS_ATTENTION hint for such windows by detecting stacking configure requests (meta_window_configure_request())--if we do so, it may also make sense to raise such windows to just below the window with focus and move it so that is obscured as little as possible by the focus window) Rob has also mentioned the possibility of handling demands-attention via a notification applet or message of some kind. Finally, another possibility, once we have transparency/translucency, is to place the window on top but make it highly transparent so that the user can ignore it temporarily and continue with what they were doing but definitely notice the window wants attention. (This last idea could possibly also be merged with Rob's idea, if Rob's idea is done as a separate window rather than an applet) For now, let's get the flashing working (even if hackily), but keep this open for other improvements...
I would say this is mostly a dup of 120439. I don't think we need to keep it open for "all possible improvements" unless someone is actively coding those improvements.
*shrugs* fair enough, if its duplicate, they can be merged, or whatever approximation of that bugzilla allows. Elijah said in the thread I started on wm-spec to open a bug, so I did.
Well, I had an idea in mind about something metacity itself could do to assist here as well (but when I started typing up my comment I realized I had made a mistake and the configure_request stuff seemed to be the closest); and I thought that Luke might file additional independent examples of things we were missing--in which case it would belong in a separate bug. I figured it couldn't hurt to have a separate bug just in case and then file as a duplicate if it turned out to be such. *shrug* Sorry if I wasted anyone's time. I'll mark as a dup for now. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 120439 ***