unity-design team mailing list archive

[Dylan McCall <dylanmccall@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 10:00 -0400, Steve Stalcup wrote:
> I still feel default notifications (knotify in the case of KDE) is my  
> ideal method on email notifications
> 
> More crap isn't always better

I'm not even completely clued in on how Message Indicator works its
magic, except that it involves my favourite bus, but it's worth noting
that Maemo does something a lot like this (and so does Mer). If anyone
here happens to own one of the Nokia Internet Tablets, check out the
task switcher doohickey on the bottom left. It generally lists open
windows, and information can be thrown in at will by other applications,
for example to say "there are new emails!"). If there are new emails,
its icon changes to that email icon. Or the chat icon. Or
(theoretically) whatever other icon you want :)

Basically the same functionality as is happening here. Even if my secret
hope is not fulfilled (which is that Ubuntu simply uses a modified
version of that software, rendering the ecosystem more cohesive), there
is probably a bit to learn from it since people seem to like Maemo's
thing and it has been used for a reasonably long while.

In fact, Maemo has a lot of stuff that's applicable to the last Ubuntu
release. Its notification bubbles don't do actions, its system tray
shows only a few specific hardware-related applets (such as sound
status, with an icon to reflect what kind of audio device is attached),
and rarely any more. It's very organized.
I think that works so well for them because the system tray is limited
in size (so nobody wants to make it ugly) and when a window is minimized
on that platform it becomes a tiny icon anyway, just in a more logical
part of the screen.

Mer makes interesting use of the task switcher to present important
notifications that should not disappear automatically, eg: "hey, I've
started using your cell phone's expensive Internet connection!" (Which
is absolutely something the user should know when he gets back to his
system). Not that dialogs don't do this, of course, but then again we
could pop up a dialog box for each new email, too ;)

So, err, back on topic: If it isn't trouble, it may be worthwhile to
look at how Maemo does it and at any discussions which have arisen
around that functionality, rather than duplicate any efforts.


Bye,
Dylan McCall

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