unity-design team mailing list archive

[Conscious User <conscioususer@xxxxxxx>]

> Really well said :)

Thank you. :)

> One issue I have is NotifyOSD _feels_ done, but indeed the project
> does not meet the design. If I look under Blueprints for notify-osd on
> Launchpad[1], I see one very general task from core developers, and
> three from frustrated users that conflict with the stated goals. So,
> if I want to help notify-osd, I am already lost.
> [1] https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/notify-osd

This is something I particularly dislike about Launchpad. Why does
it allow non-developers to post blueprints? But this is off-topic...

> So, I think some of this falls to organizing tasks better. Shiny new
> projects need to be broken into smaller chunks. It isn't about
> organizing work during a busy release cycle, but so people can
> contribute specific features stuff more easily when they aren't
> involved in the core developer group and link their implementations to
> those blueprints.

The development model of Ayatana projects is also kinda closed.
For one interested in helping out with developing NotifyOSD
or the indicators, it is hard to make out things about the
concept and API, from the blog posts scattered everywhere.

> And speaking of polishing features, how about that Gnome Shell thing?
> They are using desktop notifications more aggressively, with a system
> very much inspired by smartphones. Notifications, from their
> perspective, aren't necessarily popup bubbles. They are messages that
> appear in a tray at the bottom of the screen (which have nothing to do
> with status indicators) and stay there until dismissed. It's looking
> like a very solid design goal, which I expect apps will be encouraged
> to support.
> 
> My identi.ca status is currently "#ifdefs are the devil!”, so you may
> see where this is going ;)

This is basically why pushing a notification spec is much more
important than pushing a notification daemon. It shouldn't
matter how different the Gnome, KDE and Ayatana approaches
to notifications are, ideally it should be just a matter of
uninstalling a daemon and installing other. Following a
specification is why the appindicators rule so much.