--- Begin Message ---
On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Paulo J. S. Silva<pjssilva@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> The purpose of this message is to present an alternative that I believe
> is in line with the spirit of osd-notifier and that would avoid the
> users of obtrusive pop-unders.
You say that the pop-under windows are obtrusive, which implies being
so noticeable as to be undesirable.
I can understand that for folks who pay close attention to computer
screens, an indicator icon is fine and a pop-under window seems like
overkill. I am guessing that if we've got 300-odd upset users in the
bug tracker or brainstorm, these are the people who can watch small
icons just fine and have a low tolerance for the operating system
opening windows when you didn't ask it to.
However, I think that you and all of the folks upset by the change
need to submit to either adjust it to the old way or get accustomed to
the new way. For the vast majority of computer users I know, small
icons go unnoticed. On Windows, clicking a small icon in the task bar
can do any number of frightening things and many Windows users who
have come to Ubuntu are shy about clicking icons that aren't tied to
an application they've installed. These are the "human" users for whom
we're designing.
Pop-under windows should rarely be seen, and should only be used for
mission-critical cases. Getting users to update their computers is
mission-critical. Ubuntu users are a lot more secure when updates are
downloaded speedily. The fact is that pop-under windows get the job
done in a way that little icons don't. It is a relatively drastic
measure, but getting updates out there is the most critical part of
the security pipeline and so to do less is, in my opinion, neglecting
the user.
Thank you for your input. I hope that you can understand my point of
view and I also hope that, when you take a longer view of the
situation for computer updates, you'll agree that the benefits
outweigh the drawbacks.
Cheers,
Ryan Prior
--- End Message ---
