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

["Niels Reedijk" <niels.reedijk@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ryan,

If I look back at my mail and at the responses and ideas in this
thread, I think I need to come to the conclusion that the point I was
trying to make are actually two points.

The first point is that I personally don´t like popups as a way of
notifying them. The fact that all sorts of messages that I might not
control, draw my attention looks like completely counterproductive and
counter to what a computer should do. About being in the zone, about
taking control of your time, I still find those two concepts very
important in user<->machine interaction.

The second point is that I find it a bad idea to write a notification
mechanism now, because I consider it a solution looking for a problem.
What I strongly feel is that we at least for the core system should
look at all the potential messages we want to communicate with the
user, and based on that find the appropriate solution for that
communication. That´s what I consider the way to go.

Now I don´t say that we might eventually come to the conclusion that a
lot of the communication we want to happen could happen through a
uniform way, and I might even think that in some cases this is a popup
system. But as per point two, I find it a bit early to consider making
an official API addition for this system, because it will be mal used.
Because it gives a sign to developers that it´s okay to steal the
attention from the users. That´s not true, applications should always
negotiate with their users how to communicate, and that´s what we want
developers to think about.

Back to your mail:

2007/5/24, Ryan Leavengood <leavengood@xxxxxxxxx>:
> Neils, I get what you are saying. As a developer I know all about
> "getting in the zone" or flow of my work, and I hate being interrupted
> when I'm in that place. But I'm not always working. There are times
> when I appreciate being notified that I have new email, or that a
> download is finished, and most importantly a reminder about a meeting
> since unlike yourself I'm not always checking the time. Actually even
> when I'm working in the zone I still need to know about that meeting,
> so a somewhat distracting notification is something I would actually
> NEED. While a slight change in the display of the deskbar time might
> alert you about the impending meeting, it won't work for me. Maybe I'm
> just not as organized, or maybe I just get super focused when working,
> but either way, your solution won't work for me.
Agreed. Sometimes you want to be interrupted. Sometimes you don´t. As
for the meeting announcements, I already gave an idea to communicate
with a user without bothering him. And naturally, sometimes you want
to explicitly ask for attention. I can think of many ways to ask for
attention, some involving showing popups, some other ways which might
be better. What works? I don´t know, let´s try some solutions. What I
do know, is that when you have a notification server, it´s very
attractive not to think outside the box.

> So my point is, while I appreciate your thoughts about user
> interaction and wanting to minimize interruptions, it seems you are
> biased toward your own behaviors and attitudes and therefore ignore
> what other different users might want or need.
As per point 2, I think users and programs should interact. Now, if we
implement a complete notification system including priorities and
severities, per application settings, statuses and what ever more, you
are taking the responsibility of thinking about user interaction away
from the application developer and put it into the system´s hands,
where it belongs.

> I'm also concerned that your ideas about implementing specific
> application-dependent notifications will result in a lot of
> inconsistency. One of the main reasons I suggested this idea was that
> so Haiku could provide a consistent (and hopefully well implemented)
> way for any and all applications to notify the users about events. I
> would find it annoying if I had to keep an eye on a certain Deskbar
> replicant to see new email, and then keep an eye on the time to know
> about meetings, and then keep an eye on my IM window to see when my
> coworker Joe logs in, who I have to ask a question. That seems a whole
> lot more distracting that just noticing little notification windows
> when they pop up.
First point: inconsistency. I agree that we want Haiku to stay lean.
But it´s also not unheard of that certain good examples of user
notification won´t be copied by other applications, or that we even
can set some standards. And you might be right, popups might even be
the way to go and we end up adopting the notification server anyway.
But again, it will have to be a solution to a problem, and not one in
search of a problem.

Anyway, to come to a conclusion, implement a notification server if
you want to. I won´t come in your way. As we can see, there´s a broad
support for it and the work will be appreciated. However, what I would
suggest though, which I would consider more rewarding, is trying to
look at the individual communication problems you are trying to fix
with it, and thinking, alone or in a group, outside the box of how to
perform these tasks in the best possible way.

Good luck,

Niels