FreeLists / haiku-development / [haiku-development] Re: Notification Server?

[Simon Taylor <simontaylor1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Axel Dörfler wrote:
> Stephan Assmus <superstippi@xxxxxx> wrote:
> > I think it should be done. To address the problem and fears that 
> > DarkWyrm and 
> > others have mentioned, I suggest to introduce a non-optional 
> > "importance" 
> > parameter to be handled to the notification function. This way the 
> > programmer 
> > is forced to conciously decide what the importance level of the 
> > message is. 
> > For the configuration of the server, I suggest a two way filter. The 
> > simple 
> > configuration would be the level of importance below which messages 
> > are 
> > suppressed. Additionally to that, the user should be allowed to 
> > suppress 
> > messages of certain applications. To make this easy, the GUI for that 
> > should 
> > list all known applications which have send notifications up to this 
> > point. 
> >
> > DarkWyrm and others, do you think this would address your concerns?
> Even though it's rare that I completely agree with DarkWyrm, I do this 
> time :-))
> Anyway, I think that the above could actually work, even though I would 
> like to make it even more complex and also add a category to the event 
> - the GUI could use this to filter the info, but it could also (and 
> maybe primarily) use it to show some nice visual hint in case the 
> message didn't contain one.
> Bye,
>    Axel.
I don't like the idea of the "importance" field as it is bound to be 
misused. Then when I think I've disabled all but "critical" warnings and 
some app pops up a "The time is now 12:43" message I'd feel confused or 
simply annoyed.
Though I agree having a system wide service for this is preferable to 
apps rolling their own solution, I do feel making it too easy will lead 
to over-use. So I'm not entirely sure of my position. I certainly hate 
the windows bubble tips ("Your desktop looks messy") but things like new 
email notifications can be useful.
I'd suggest to force apps to include a category with their message as 
Axel suggested. Then when a message pops up, a right click (or a down 
arrow button next to the close notification (X) button perhaps) will 
give options like "Ignore all messages from MyApp" and "Ignore <this 
category> messages from MyApp". The category (rather than importance) is 
less open to misuse by developers, and frees users to decide their own 
importance levels for categories. For example, I might value 
notifications about forthcoming meetings from an Outlook-type app more 
than new email notifications, but other people may be the opposite.
Simon