After an evaluation, GNOME has moved from Bugzilla to GitLab. Learn more about GitLab.
No new issues can be reported in GNOME Bugzilla anymore.
To report an issue in a GNOME project, go to GNOME GitLab.
Do not go to GNOME Gitlab for: Bluefish, Doxygen, GnuCash, GStreamer, java-gnome, LDTP, NetworkManager, Tomboy.
Bug 649028 - Shell notifications overlay application input
Shell notifications overlay application input
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 677217
Product: gnome-shell
Classification: Core
Component: extensions
3.0.x
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: gnome-shell-maint
gnome-shell-maint
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2011-04-30 15:10 UTC by Julian Andres Klode
Modified: 2012-11-02 15:10 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
Example screenshot (339.43 KB, image/png)
2011-04-30 15:10 UTC, Julian Andres Klode
Details

Description Julian Andres Klode 2011-04-30 15:10:51 UTC
Created attachment 186941 [details]
Example screenshot

As notifications are now shown at the bottom, centered, they happen to be drawn on top of the terminal input, or XChat input, when those applications are run maximized. This is somewhat annoying.
Comment 1 relativeownership 2011-11-01 09:41:32 UTC
Agreed. These messages can also overlay fullscreen applications like media players. Users should be able to configure what messages are displayed and where they are displayed.
Comment 2 relativeownership 2011-11-01 09:46:22 UTC
Erm. I understand that the control mechanisms allowing users to fine-tune what and where messages are displayed will take a substantial amount of development; just the option to manually disable such notifications (such as, while working in Xchat, terminal, or watching a movie) would be great as a stop-gap.
Comment 3 Milan Bouchet-Valat 2011-11-01 10:41:24 UTC
You can already disable notifications manually from the switch in the user menu in the top-right corner. But that's not really what this report is about.

I'm not sure what we can do about this, though. We cannot reasonably disable notifications when an application is maximized (contrary to fullscreen), since that's what happens most of the time. Designers?
Comment 4 Mark Blakeney 2011-11-01 11:54:18 UTC
As a developer, who sits in a terminal window for much of his day, this one issue is almost forcing me back to Unity :( I am very surprised gnome devs don't find this a pain themselves - don't they work at the command line anymore?!
Gnome shell is excellent, but the notifications system needs work.
Comment 5 Milan Bouchet-Valat 2011-11-01 12:09:11 UTC
(In reply to comment #4)
> As a developer, who sits in a terminal window for much of his day, this one
> issue is almost forcing me back to Unity :( I am very surprised gnome devs
> don't find this a pain themselves - don't they work at the command line
> anymore?!
What solution do you suggest? Disabling notifications when an application is maximized? (If that's really what you want, note you can already disable them manually, as a temporary solution.)
Comment 6 Mark Blakeney 2011-11-01 12:28:15 UTC
I'm not a UI guy but I personally would prefer notifications at the top of my screen where I am rarely typing rather than the bottom where I am frequently typing. So a user option is possibly needed to configure the notification window position, at least top or bottom screen. I can never recall this being a problem for me in all the previous ubuntu/gnome releases where notifications were at the top right.

I certainly don't want to disable notifications (among other things, how else will I even know I have new mail given gnome-shell does not seem to provide any static indicator icon for the gmail notifiers?). I just don't want to have to stop typing and wait every time I get a notification popup.
Comment 7 relativeownership 2011-11-01 15:13:36 UTC

(In reply to comment #3)
> You can already disable notifications manually from the switch in the user menu
> in the top-right corner. But that's not really what this report is about.
> 
> I'm not sure what we can do about this, though. We cannot reasonably disable
> notifications when an application is maximized (contrary to fullscreen), since
> that's what happens most of the time. Designers?

I apologize for my ignorance; can you please clarify the terminology for me...when one disables "Notifications", does that mean that all pop-ups from the message-tray are disabled? Or are some messages "notifications" and other are "messages" or something?

I ask because even after I flipped the disabled switch, I am still getting message popups from the message-tray when my wifi drops due to poor signal. I had to disable my wifi to keep from getting the messages...is my button just borked or would a wifi drop message not be considered a "Notification" that would be disabled by that button?

With respect to a solution, I understand the reasoning behind having the notifications pop up from the bottom instead of on top, because that's where we have the message-tray and it seems like a logical place to keep such a tray. I guess it might work for some people to simply move the notifications to the top, but that would really wreck things like the integrated Empathy chat boxes. Can't have them coming in sideways because the messages would probably have to pop out  up to 1/3 of the horiz. screen space to be readable, or use vertical text (even worse?). Possible options:

1. Notifications sensitive to activity - if the user is typing, wait for a break in typing before popping.
2. How about having a user-configurable option to have the message-tray do some sort of gentle color-pulse (either the whole thing across the bottom or just the hotspot in the lower-right corner) instead of actually popping a notification until the user could mouse or key a request to see the notifications? Perhaps have all the notifications visible in overview mode, so all a user has to do to check a notification is tap super or lower-right mouse gesture. This behavior maybe shouldn't be default, since I think most end-users aren't furiously hacking on a fullscreen terminal, but it should be an easy option to activate. Plus, it could add a nice piece of smooth eyecandy, and it's a familiar concept for people coming from Windows - xp/vista/7 all color pulse minimized windows that want the user's attention.
3. I think it might be a little less distracting if the notification popped in the lower-right corner instead of lower-center. But that's me; some people may prefer it elsewhere. Let users decide where they want their notifications to pop.
Comment 8 Milan Bouchet-Valat 2011-11-02 09:41:13 UTC
I suspect the problem is not so much that notifications appear above the maximized window, but rather that they steal focus if the pointer is on them, preventing you from typing. That would be bug 661358. What do you think?

Maybe the notifications could appear in the bottom-right corner instead of at the center of the screen, but we should be sure fixing the focus issue isn't enough.

Regarding the color-pulse effect, that would be bug 641723: if you don't want to be disturbed by notifications, you would disable them just as you already can ATM, but you would still see a glow effect in the bottom-right corner.

About WiFi lost notifications, I think they have been removed anyway in recent versions.
Comment 9 Mark Blakeney 2011-11-02 12:18:43 UTC
(In reply to comment #8)
Notifications should not steal focus but, speaking from my experience and I am not the OP, I think the essence of this present bug is the fact that the notification popup overlays exactly the "money spot" area of a full screen terminal window or chat app etc and just blocks the last few lines from view. I experience this problem on my laptop where with my smaller screen I tend to run 2 terminal windows fully vertically maximised so those bottom lines are where my prompt and current line is and where as a developer I spent much of my day.
Comment 10 Julian Andres Klode 2011-11-02 13:37:13 UTC
Yes, it's fairly simple. Notifications overlay the input. So I am typing a command and then need to pause when a notification comes in because

 (a) I can't see what I typed
 (b) I can't type anything else into the window
Comment 11 Rui Matos 2011-11-02 13:53:24 UTC
Disclaimer: I'm also a developer using side-by-side maximized terminals and a maximized emacs window all day. I don't feel that the current notifications design hinder my work at all.

As for the requests being made here I can only recommend that you do an extension that moves the notifications to somewhere else. UI for configuring the notifications place is totally out of question on the core project.
Comment 12 Jasper St. Pierre (not reading bugmail) 2011-11-02 14:17:40 UTC
The big problem for me is the bottom gradient. It's so bad in XChat or other things that I've even hacked it out of the theme myself.

Of course, stealing the focus is a bug no matter where we do it. We went so far as to make mutter stop applications from doing it -- if we're doing it in the message tray we need to stop it.
Comment 13 Mark Blakeney 2011-11-07 00:55:36 UTC
(In reply to comment #11)
> Disclaimer: I'm also a developer using side-by-side maximized terminals and a
> maximized emacs window all day. I don't feel that the current notifications
> design hinder my work at all.

Rui, can you please explain how this problem does not affect you? If you use a maximised terminal then you will be typing on the bottom line like me and any notification popup will overwrite exactly that bottom line. I typically just stop and wait for the notification to go away as I can not see what I am typing. What are you doing differently such that this does not bother you? This is a terrible problem for terminal users using gnome-shell.
Comment 14 Rui Matos 2011-11-07 01:07:24 UTC
(In reply to comment #13)
> Rui, can you please explain how this problem does not affect you? If you use a
> maximised terminal then you will be typing on the bottom line like me and any
> notification popup will overwrite exactly that bottom line. I typically just
> stop and wait for the notification to go away as I can not see what I am
> typing. What are you doing differently such that this does not bother you? This
> is a terrible problem for terminal users using gnome-shell.

I don't get notifications usually. I'm always in "busy" mode. Actually that was one of gnome-shell's selling points for me from the very beginning. The ability to control when I want to be interrupted by notifications or not.
Comment 15 hotani 2012-04-25 16:03:55 UTC
How about adding a small notification counter to the top panel? Checking there or the lower notification area would clear the notification and allow user to view/clear/go to app.

The pop-ups block input for terminal/IM windows as stated above. The ironic part is that I have a browser and IM window open side by side. When a new IM comes in I see it in the IM window then there is this obnoxious pop-up blocking the input. I'm staring at the app but it doesn't have focus so the pop-ups show. 

Also: why does turning off notifications automatically set my status to "Busy"? If I wanted to set my status to busy I'd do that. I just don't want to see any pop-ups.
Comment 16 Florian Müllner 2012-11-02 15:10:52 UTC
This has been addressed at least partly by the message tray changes in 3.6. There are still parts of the design that are not implemented yet (like not popping up notifications underneath the pointer), but this is already tracked elsewhere (also see the video linked in bug 677217).

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 677217 ***