unity-design team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Christian Rupp wrote on 15/11/11 16:06:
> 
> Currently notifications in unity are what they called:
> notifications: they don't do anything else... I really like in GS
> to be able to answer immediately or a friend complained that he
> wants to click on the notification to open the program behind.
> 
> First of all I would move the bubble closer to the panel


That looks much nicer.

> Then after a short delay i would "minimize" it if you click on it
> in this state it would open the application which is linked (in
> this case banshee)


How would people understand that it did something different when
clicked in large state vs. small state? I don't know of any other case
where something getting smaller indicates that it's clickable.

> If it would be a chat program and you would hover the  minimized 
> bubble it shows a text field, where you can enter a message... if
> you click on the bubble above the field it would open the chat
> window
> 
> ...


Chat programs already have an interface for entering a message: the
chat window. The design principle of parsimony suggests that we should
first try using the same interface for notifying you of a conversation
as for participating in the conversation.

At the moment, there are two main reasons chat programs don't do that
on Ubuntu.

The first reason is that a chat window wouldn't be noticable unless it
was frontmost; it's difficult (or little-known) to make a window
frontmost without making it take focus; and if a window takes focus
while you're working, that's annoying.

That can be fixed, by figuring out what code makes a window frontmost
without being focused, publicizing that code if it's simple, or
putting it in a library if it's hard.

The second reason is that a chat window would take up much more space
than a notification bubble does.

That too can be fixed, by making the window small before you click it,
and enlarging it after you click it.

Here's a mockup of this idea from 2009, for the similar case of a file
share.
<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NotificationDesignGuidelines#Morphing_window>

- -- 
mpt
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