unity-design team mailing list archive

[tacone <tacone@xxxxxxx>]

I had an idea for notifications which require interaction.

I've read about morphing windows on the Wiki but I think that they
would undermine consistency a bit. I'm attaching a mockup to this
mail, but I'm so bad at using Gimp that much of what I'm proposing
will be left to your ability of understanding me. :-)

Currently notifications disappear on mouse hover. Morphing window, if
I understood correctly, expand on mouse hover. Also, the notifications
are a few pixel far from the edge of the screen.

Since I'd leave non interactive notifications untouched, what I'll
talk from now on, is only about interactive notifications/morphing
windows.

My proposal is to let the notifications that allow for user
interaction to be actually attached to the edge of the screen. The gap
from such edge will be filled by a colored stripe. (see the
attachment).

On mouse hover, the notification will disappear as usual. Only the
colored stripe will remain visible (should also display a slightly
lighter color to subtly indicate to the user it's an interactive
element).

If the user clicks  on the stripe, the notification window will
appear, expanded, showing full markup and interactive controls. It
will also probably cover near notifications (not an issue).
While the stripe is very thin (by design), it's attached to the edge
of the screen, making it very easy to click (it's the same principle
adopted by gnome panel's trash bin, for example).
The notification should disappear on loss of focus (user click on
another window) or if the stripe is clicked again.

Also notice the stripe is thin enough to only half cover the close
button of any window near to the screen edge. That would make it at
least possible to ignore the notification and and close a window under
it.

Case edge: the user has multiple screens (or uses synergy). In that
case clicking the stripe would not be that easy, but probably easier
than going to the indicator applet.

The interaction stripe may be colored differently to indicate urgency
(green, red, etc) and substitute the green point some people were
talking about.

What do you think ?

Attachment: mockup.png
Description: PNG image