unity-design team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx wrote on 16/12/10 18:42:
>...
> On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 09:48, Mark Shuttleworth <mark@xxxxxxxxxx
>...
>> On 22/09/10 11:37, frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx
>...
>>> The high level concept of Silent Mode active during a Desktop session
>>> is that the user has a simple way of enabling an disturbance-free
>>> experience in order to be able to focus on an important task, work,
>>> project, conversation, movie, audio or what have you.
>>>
>>> Has anyone started speccing this out already?
>>
>> I don't believe so. If you would like to do a spec, either work with
>> MPT or I'll review it with you until it gets approval and then it can
>> be queued for 11.10. This is LOOOONG overdue, and I appreciate your
>> offer of help.
>
> This has probably been lying around for so long, because of design
> conflicts with how the Ayatana subsystem is currently wired.
> * Presence has no local effect
> * Presence has no effect on Skype (except with Pidgin running)
>    -> https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator-me/+bug/684678
> * System Sounds are not connected with notifications (perhaps with
> Dylan's patch?)

None of those are the reason.

The main reason is that, as you say,

> Busy aka DoNotDisturb has been around for as long as i know Presence in
> IM,

and no-one has ever gotten around the problem that (a) having to go
online with your IM account for the purpose of being interrupted *less*
often would be daft, and (b) any design that works around that by making
"being online" a separate thing from being in "do not disturb" mode
would make IM slower and more complicated to use.

For any design problem, I consider: Can it be solved by
1.  removing things?
2.  merging things?
3.  moving or renaming things?

Only if none of those will work do I consider making the system more
complex by adding things.

For example, to solve the problem of too many interruptions:

*   remove unnecessary notification bubbles from programs
    <http://mairin.wordpress.com/2009/01/05/chatty-applications/>

*   merge or replace notification bubbles, in programs where that's
    appropriate

*   merge Skype status setting with status setting for other IM
    protocols, so you don't need to set "Do not disturb" twice

*   move and/or reword the options for interruptions, to make them more
    obvious in programs like Evolution and Empathy.

All those things could, and should, be done regardless of whether a
"silent mode" is added later. And if they were done, a silent mode
probably wouldn't be necessary.

>...
> other issues in the same domain:
> * Invisible doesn't really work - it jumps to busy always

That seems like a bug, not a design.

> * the Session Menu is on the wrong side of the panel (imo)

In an ideal PC operating system, the session menu wouldn't be necessary
either. Adding an extra menu was easier than doing the necessary changes
in GDM and the kernel.

- -- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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