[haiku-development] Re: Notification Server?

Stephan Assmus wrote:
Niels, it will be done anyways (I mean, if not by us then by someone else, in fact it has been), as much as I agree with your general notion. But I'd rather have it under our control, so that we can make it as sane as possible.
Neils' concern, which I share, is that including a method for doing this in the API will encourage overuse. Having an official Haiku-supported API for this means it can be "done well", but doing it well, in an officially supported way, will lead to many more people using it. That's why we need to be sure we really want it at all.
Some useful situations for the feature were pointed out. The thing is you are fighting windmills. By not providing the feature, you will likely not get the reaction "ah what a relieve, Haiku doesn't have these bothersome notifications".
It won't be an instant reaction - but I bet people would become aware of it and feel positively about it (most likely when they go to work and use Windows again). 

So the advantages of a system-wide server:
-Unified look and feel to messages
-Unified place to set preferences
-Easier for app developers to implement notifications

Disadvantages (/advantages of letting apps roll their own)
-May encourage a lot more apps to (mis)use the pop-ups, leading to interuptions -May become the "easy way out" when better notification schemes more applicable to the particular situation are possible -Users may miss notifications if developers assume notifications will all be enabled -Apps can customise the display of messages (eg a "Mark as Spam and Delete" button from an email app's notifications).
Here's another problem: if people are allowed to switch the notifications off, the need for the app developer to use an alternative method for really critical notifications still exists. What about super-hyper-important messages, such as "Your laptop will run out of battery power in 10 seconds" - should they bypass the "all off" setting? 

Now I've thought about it for a bit I think I'm with Niels.

Simon

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