unity-design team mailing list archive

[Conscious User <conscioususer@xxxxxxx>]

> I thought the current OSD design was based on the idea that it doesn't
> matter if you miss one notification. ;-)  So what would be wrong if
> the notification was simply discarded in that case? It collided with a
> much more important action, so it's only natural that it would yield
> priority.

Like I said, it's not necessarily a "much more important action". It
could be a very mundane action, but whose movement you couldn't stop
by reflex.

Furthermore, it is one thing to miss one notification because you were
away or not paying attention. It is another, and much more annoying,
thing to know *something* has happened and never knowing *what*.

> IMHO much of those problems are due to the NotifyOSD giving itself too
> much airs. If it truly accepted its role of being secondary to
> everything else, and just disappeared when it's unwanted,  it would be
> a lot less intrusive.
>  
> Actually there's a really simple fix that would solve both your
> problem and the one of obscuring graphical applications, and it's
> this: don't ever show a notification while the user is working on
> something else. The way to detect the user work must be heuristic, but
> there are some good clues to it:
> 
> - never show the notification while the user is actively providing
> input. Typing, moving the cursor, drag gestures.
> - After heavy user actions (pressing keys, clicking) wait at leas 5
> seconds before showing a notification.
> - If the user is working at a fast pace and the notification remains
> hidden for this reason for longer than its useful lifetime, simply
> discard it forever.
> 
> These small additions would prevent a notification getting in the way.
> In these cases the user wouldn't have noticed or wanted to read it
> anyway, so nothing of value is lost.

I can be typing very fast... to copy a recipe of cake my grandmother
sent me. I can be constantly moving the cursor... to play a flash
game. I can be working at a fast pace... because I had one coffee
too many, not necessarily because the task is important.

I think you are proposing a *very simple* heuristic to guess *very
complex* thoughts.