Re: [Ayatana] New notification placement

[Mike Rooney <mrooney@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 12:19 PM, Alex Launi<alex.launi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> A bit ago I did my set of updates, which included the new release of
> notify-osd, which are placed a bit lower than midway down the screen.
> Putting these that far down the screen is really disrupting, and much more
> flawed than their original position. The biggest problem is that the
> information they present is entirely abstract, and disjointed from
> everything else happening on my desktop. In the top right they are visually
> connected to the notification area, where other system info is presented, so
> I am given an area where I can find my system status of various kinds,
> battery, wifi, time, and with notifications messages. Moving the
> notifications down the screen completely breaks this association, and causes
> a serious disruption of my workflow as I try and figure out what the bubble
> is related to, why it's in the middle of my screen, whether or not I should
> report a bug (I know this one is not a concern basic users will have, but
> it's not a very important one so let's not dwell on it), and when it's going
> to go away because being in the middle of the screen it's actually covering
> content, not just some window chrome. In fact, as I was typing this email a
> tweet popped up and blocked right where my cursor was and I had to stop
> typing and wait for it to go away so that I could see what I was doing; I
> was completely interrupted by it which breaks a core design goal of
> notify-osd.
>
> This experiment should definitely be called unsuccessful and notifications
> should return to their sane place of top-right.
>

I feel ambivalent regarding the vertical positioning, but I do agree
that "fixing" notifications to not fade if they appear where the mouse
is, is actually breaking it. As I mentioned on the blog post, if a
notification appears where my mouse is, there is a very high chance I
am looking/working in that area and that this notification is going to
be an impediment. The old behavior of starting faded in may not have
been optimal but I think it was more usable and less in the way.
Perhaps it should fade partially in then out again when it appears
this way.

But I agree with Alex. Appearing unfaded at precisely the area where
you are likely working (the position of the mouse cursor) seems to go
against the wonderful philosophy of notify-osd.

Thanks for all the great work so far on this, and I am quite sure it
will get better and better over time, perhaps with the occasional
little bump :)

-- 
Michael Rooney
mrooney@xxxxxxxxxx