this looks pretty cool, notification bubbles..

[Derek Broughton]

Magnus Therning wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 14, 2005 at 10:10:38PM -0500, Darryl Clarke wrote:
>>On 12/14/05, Brian Puccio <brian at brianpuccio.net> wrote:
>>> On Thu, 2005-12-15 at 09:24 +0800, Senectus . wrote:
>>> > http://www.martianrock.com/?p=175
>>> >
>>> > This would look bloody brilliant in dapper :-D
>>>
>>> It looks cool, but I read an article (or blog entry or something) about
>>> the usability of same and it raised a few valid points. What if the
>>> notification pops up while I'm AFK for a glass of water and I miss it?
>>> The solution to that is to make it require me to click on it to make it
>>> go away. However, if I'm in the middle of something, I may not want to
>>> have to push interruptions out of my way. There were a few other issues
>>> raised in the writing that I don't remember off hand, but it seems to be
>>> a sticky issue. While I'm sure there is a decent way to implement these,
>>> it would need to be done right.
>>
>>Those certainly look pretty...
>>
>>The current update notification throws a popup bubble like that (not as
>>pretty).  It's not overly annoying, but it would be if I weren't using
>>a monster screen with a monster resolution.

KDE can do it with knotify - you can set that for any system notification &
specify how long it will display.

>>I think for an idle session it'd be fine to popup and wait for
>>interaction before vanishing, but for an active user there's nothing
>>more annoying than a gigantic bubble telling me something I don't care
>>to read.

Definitely.
 
> This whole discussion makes me think of the silly popup bubbles in
> Windows (XP I think). It's one of the most annoying things ever with
> Windows (slightly exaggerated, I know :-). 

It works in the right place.

> Especially the printing 
> bubble, because it doesn't go away on it's own, I have to reach for the
> mouse and navigate to the bottom right corner.

Yes, there's a few like that and "we hates 'em"!
 
otoh, I love the Outlook pop-up, which allows me to open an email message if
I want, delete it unread, or just let it fade away to be dealt with next
time I'm in the mail program.
-- 
derek