[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
ddumont wrote: This is not good behavior for a company who wishes to continue to gain market share... you cannot apply this type of behavior at will to all areas of your distribution without SEVERELY pissing most of your userbase off. I'm afraid this argument, ddumont, is going to fall pretty flat. Linux has never really cared about market share, since it's a community effort rather than a proprietary commercial product. Ubuntu is likewise a free distribution, and so market share doesn't really figure into it. Linux has always been about creating the best OS possible, and while a larger user base does make it easier to refine and improve a system -- a million eyes are better than two, after all -- popularity has always been at best a secondary priority. I agree that this was a bad design change, but you're going to lose customers because of this isn't really a good argument when talking about free open-source software, even if it may be technically true... -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
I have to agree here. What will happen to programms like pidgin or Skype. Can we not send them to the notification area any more? That would be really disappointing. What other place will there be to have a permanent place of putting apps that run in the background, if you ultimately remove the notification completly? Chauncellor wrote: MPT: Oh, goodie! Looks like we have a winner here. I'll be voting that idea up I hope it's implemented soon, it's exactly what I was thinking about! May I ask what the end result of the notification area is, then? It seems like the goal is ultimately to completely remove the notification area. What would you do with dockable programs like Thunderbird or Pidgin, then? Where would I send them? Also, at this point in time, it seems that you guys are set on never looking back into putting the notifications into the notification bar. I would like to plead on my knees that something be done with the in-your-face pop-up, pop-under, evasive, invisible, or-whatever-is-being-boiled-next method that ultimately invades and annoys the users and also does less of a good job of notifying. Never have I had a window that I couldn't minimize in Ubuntu, and I'm always thankful of that when I have to use this Windows machine to connect to dial-up. Please, for the love of everything good and green, do not decide that the computer knows what windows should and should not be minimized. Vincenzo Ciancia put it well when he said Really, I am in front of my beloved Ubuntu but I hate a part of it. That said, perhaps the end result of this cleaning may very well be for the better of GNOME. I very vehemently disagree with this removal, but perhaps there will be some better method that would be very friendly to all. At the present, though, it's pretty much decided that it is not. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Chauncellor: Ayatana is about cross-application design for Ubuntu in general, not just notifications. There is no plan for it ever to be finished. On cleaning up Preferences/Administration, I entirely agree: if you can help out, http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/19982 and http://live.gnome.org/SystemSettings are complementary approaches. Brian Burger: It's a fallacy to suggest that because something has been labelled the notification area it is necessarily good at presenting notifications. Our position is that it is not -- that Microsoft got it wrong in designing it, and Gnome got it wrong in copying Microsoft. mac_v: We think we have good reasons for not allowing actions in notifications https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NotificationDevelopmentGuidelines#Avoiding%20actions. Those reasons apply just as much to system software as they do to applications, so it wouldn't really make sense for system software to use a different notification system. Leandro: See my 2009-04-02 comment. yurx cherio: People had already been trying to find an effective icon for years, from one that looked like a cigarette packet (Ubuntu 5.04) to a red pinwheel (5.10) to an orange square (6.06, 6.10, 7.04, 7.10) to an SD card with a halo (Windows Vista) to a starburst (Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10). Ricardo Pérez López: Ubuntu One's notification icon is bug 362561. braddock: The updates window is not a modal dialog. Toralv: Unlike Facebook, Ubuntu is Free Software. It has thousands of unconfigurable behaviors, but you are welcome to change any of them (or even make any of them user-configurable) in your own variation. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
I don't know if this is the proper place to post this. I've done a mockup of what I think could be an idea for persistent notifications requiring user action. As with all other user actions, it would be in the Menu, where the System option would become highlighted. A new option in the menu would then appear informing the user of important notifications. It would free up the notification area, become more clear to the user than a small icon (the change in color of the menu is clearly perceivable), and not intrusive as a popup. Here I attached an image. If this is not the correct place to propose this, I'm sorry, but it seems that it is where this discussion is taking place more vividly. ** Attachment added: notification_idea.png http://launchpadlibrarian.net/27499653/notification_idea.png -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Leandro: This looks nice but only works if you have a SYSTEM menu. UNR users don't and users who remove or move this menu (as I have on a notebook) will not see the notification indication. Walt -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Leandro, based on previous comments (e.g., around #132, etc.), I'd suggest https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NotificationDesignGuidelines/Comments as a good place for your mockups. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Il giorno gio, 04/06/2009 alle 14.41 +, Matthew Paul Thomas ha scritto: yurx cherio: People had already been trying to find an effective icon for years, from one that looked like a cigarette packet (Ubuntu 5.04) to a red pinwheel (5.10) to an orange square (6.06, 6.10, 7.04, 7.10) to an SD card with a halo (Windows Vista) to a starburst (Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10). If the icon should not indicate upgrades, but rather a generic urgent message then a red triangle with an eclamation mark would be more or less universal. E.g. interactions could be queued into such a triangle icon, and then clicking would bring a menu with all the pending interactions. I doubt anybody would not react to such a icon in the proper way, that is, clicking on it to see what the system wants from us; but it would avoid launching possibly heavy softwares unrequested. Vincenzo -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
MPT: Oh, goodie! Looks like we have a winner here. I'll be voting that idea up I hope it's implemented soon, it's exactly what I was thinking about! May I ask what the end result of the notification area is, then? It seems like the goal is ultimately to completely remove the notification area. What would you do with dockable programs like Thunderbird or Pidgin, then? Where would I send them? Also, at this point in time, it seems that you guys are set on never looking back into putting the notifications into the notification bar. I would like to plead on my knees that something be done with the in-your-face pop-up, pop-under, evasive, invisible, or-whatever-is-being-boiled-next method that ultimately invades and annoys the users and also does less of a good job of notifying. Never have I had a window that I couldn't minimize in Ubuntu, and I'm always thankful of that when I have to use this Windows machine to connect to dial-up. Please, for the love of everything good and green, do not decide that the computer knows what windows should and should not be minimized. Vincenzo Ciancia put it well when he said Really, I am in front of my beloved Ubuntu but I hate a part of it. That said, perhaps the end result of this cleaning may very well be for the better of GNOME. I very vehemently disagree with this removal, but perhaps there will be some better method that would be very friendly to all. At the present, though, it's pretty much decided that it is not. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Il giorno mer, 03/06/2009 alle 19.36 +, mb_webguy ha scritto: This one, however, was -- in many users' opinions -- for the worse, and the response to negative user feedback on this issue has made it seem as if the developers are determinedly ignoring it. No the feedback has not been ignored. Some improvement has been added (e.g. the window starts minimised, even if it is not happening on my machine, so I am only trusting others here). Point is that the idea of opening interactive windows automatically is not considered bad by developers anymore for reasons that, even though explained other times, I don't understand. Perhaps it's me. V. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Il giorno mar, 02/06/2009 alle 15.30 +, braddock ha scritto:
What happened to the wide-spread usability principle that modal
dialogs
(aka, an unwanted update window) are BAD?
\begin{acid*}
It has been argued (in my opinion, very imprecisely) that no system can
go on without sometimes interrupting the user, be it a popup, a balloon
or anything else. The difference between a notification and a dialog is
clear to anybody but it seems that it must be not so clear when we speak
of the new ubuntu.
\end{acid*}
We never got a simple answer to your question. The principle is gone,
for good or bad it does not matter so much. In the name of the principle
of not crowding the notification area, one other principle is gone. It
has been said that ubuntu specific apps should be an example for all the
other apps. I wonder if this means that any app will start happily
popping up interactive popups. Perhaps we can implement a popup blocker
for the X window system :)
I personally still hate the update-notifier popup, it consumes cpu and I
see it only in rare moments because it pops under. Really, I am in front
of my beloved ubuntu but I hate a part of it.
I am using it instead of removing it to see if I get used, but it's not
happening.
V.
--
[Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
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[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
I think it's rather communistic of those responsible for this change to impose their personal preference on everybody. Ubuntu is for me not like Facebook, where changes to the interface and function happen over the heads of the community. They could have implemented an option in the Updates Configuration Dialog where the user has the option to enable/ disable this, for me, annoying behaviour. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 13:55 +, Toralv wrote: I think it's rather communistic of those responsible for this change to impose their personal preference on everybody. Hrm. You don't seem to understand the concept of communism and are making the common mistake of calling what you characterize as a dictatorship as communism. But the discussion of that is OT for this thread. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
True. I believe the correct term would be fascism; but we are getting way off topic. FWIW, I noticed that the behavior of the update window seems to have changed since I first installed Jaunty. Instead of opening as a popup/popunder, it is opening minimized in my task panel. Though this is not as annoying as having the window get in my face every time it wants attention, it is still annoying, and to me seems to violate the principle of the reason for all this change to begin with. Now, instead of an innocuous icon sitting in my notification tray, I have a minimized window sitting on my task panel. They didn't really clean up the notification area; they just simply moved them somewhere else! -Original Message- On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 13:55 +, Toralv wrote: I think it's rather communistic of those responsible for this change to impose their personal preference on everybody. Hrm. You don't seem to understand the concept of communism and are making the common mistake of calling what you characterize as a dictatorship as communism. But the discussion of that is OT for this thread. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Well Toralv is probably thinking communist in terms of Leninism or Stalinism, which were indeed oppressive totalitarian forms of communism. And Toralv, the developers make changes like this quite often, typically after much discussion, and based on input from users. Most of these changes are for the better. This one, however, was -- in many users' opinions -- for the worse, and the response to negative user feedback on this issue has made it seem as if the developers are determinedly ignoring it. I doubt that's actually the case, but it does seem from a non-involved end-user's perspective that their complaints are being cavalierly disregarded. But Brian J. Murrell is right-- this isn't really the place to discuss the decision-making process of the developers. It's not really a place for discussion at all, except for suggestions of possible solutions to the problem. I still think that using a combination of the old notification icon (as a persistent notification that updates are available) and periodic OSD notifications (to alert the user of the availability of critical updates) would be best, but... *shrug* -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
What happened to the wide-spread usability principle that modal dialogs (aka, an unwanted update window) are BAD? The notification area IS an abused swamp (Shuttleworth's words) IN WINDOWS, where every vendor shoves their logo in your face. But it is NOT a swamp UNDER UBUNTU. I have only five VERY USEFUL icons in my notification area. If I forget what they are I just mouse-over. Let's not take lessons from Vista and shove unexpected message windows in front of the user every five minutes. My mother-in-law can barely use Vista because the pop-up modality of it prevents her from simply learning the few tasks she needs to do. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
braddock speaks the truth in my head. Windows is the victim of a swamped up notification area, not Ubuntu. Look at any Windows machine I have touched, and you'll find msconfig in the last RUN box entry because I'm constantly battling all those damned startup applications that just clog, clog, clog Windows. Under Ubuntu, the ONLY program I have ever had to disable on startup is Empathy. And I think they fixed that in the newest versions. My notification area is clean, and I use it a lot. My Ubuntu machine has been connectionless for three weeks now, and I have a warning icon in the tray telling me that my sources are outdated. I, being as anal as anyone when it comes to the notification try in Windows, DO NOT CARE ABOUT IT! It does not clog up my area! I constantly send my audio tools to the tray with alltray, and even with all those, at the max I'll have maybe five or six items! That's not clogged, that's _what the tray is for_. This is an excursion that Microsoft should be looking into, not Canonical. It's wasting resources that could be better used elsewhere. Want to clean up a swamp? Clean up the Preferences/Adminstration folders - Fedora did that years ago. Clean up the Sound/Video section of Applications. But the notification area is fine the way it is! Want to know the first thing I did when I installed Jaunty? I right clicked on the indicator-applet and selected remove from panel. Productivity boosted 25 percent for me when I did. I couldn't stand using the thing, it was so useless. Again, oversimplification. Why don't we get rid of Window List? All those windows we have open, surely they're swamping up the panels We could just have the different windows focus after a certain period of time! That would solve lots of problems, neh? -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
it feels good as it is now, maybe this will improved with ubuntu apps center implementation -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Interestingly, the client of the Canonical's recently released UbuntuOne service puts a persistent applet icon in the notification area: https://ubuntuone.com/support/installation/ o_O -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
On Mon, 2009-05-11 at 22:19 +, Ricardo Pérez López wrote: Interestingly, the client of the Canonical's recently released UbuntuOne service puts a persistent applet icon in the notification area: https://ubuntuone.com/support/installation/ Well, I don't see any evidence there one way or the other, but most certainly if one's own dogfood is not good enough for one to eat himself, one should not be asking others to eat it. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Jonathan Marsden wrote: I'm slightly bewildered that so many here apparently feel that bothering to read the Jaunty Release Notes and doing what they suggest, to restore the old approach, is impossibly difficult... or something? I'm pretty sure most of us are aware of how to bring back the old behavior - at least for the moment. The problem is, it is an unsupported hack. How long will that capability be there until it is taken away? How will executing that hack affect future updates, or the upgrade to Karmic when that comes around? Besides, this isn't about us. Most of us here can work our way around these petty niggles that annoy us. It's the new users - particularly those who have never seen the old behavior and therefore have nothing to which to compare the new behavior; who thinks the new behavior is too intrusive and in your face for their comfort and, having not seen the old behavior, think that's just how Ubuntu is. It is for these people that we are running this BS flag up the flagpole. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
I believe as a bottom line everyone agrees that if a user sets the checkbox to check for updates then the user expects to be notified (one way or another) about the new available updates. If I set it as automatic I shouldn't go and do it manually. Icon in the tray is appropriate when I say so by checking the appropriate checkbox. Icon in the tray is more appropriate then balloon, because if I leave my computer for 10 min I may miss the balloon, however the icon will remain in the tray. One developer mentioned that the user has to have skills to properly recognise the update icon and the balloon is self-explanatory. Same statement can be applicable to the rest of the icons in the tray, to the icons associated with applications (e.g. when you use drawer on gnome panel), it can be used to accuse nautilus icon to be non-intuitive, etc. The solution could be simple. That update-notification icon could be made more recognisable. Open a poll/contest for the most intuitive icon and simply collect user input on that. :) -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
I'm slightly bewildered that so many here apparently feel that bothering to read the Jaunty Release Notes and doing what they suggest, to restore the old approach, is impossibly difficult... or something? At http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/904#Change%20in%20notifications%20of%20available%20updates one finds the information that: Users who wish to continue receiving update notifications in the previous manner can restore the earlier behavior using the following command: gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false It's a single command, one that you can cut and paste into a terminal window directly from the release notes. If this issue bothers someone enough to comment here about my systems are missing updates and I do less updates, why not just do that single cut and paste, logout, login, and relax :) If you are handling a corporate rollout to thousands of Ubuntu desktops, then running this from a script in /etc/profile.d/ would probably work... I prefer the old way, so I ran that command as soon as I read the release notes. It works. Job done. I'd have preferred a more obvious way to change this preference, but... the documented approach worked fine, first attempt, so no real complaint from me! You *do* have the choice. So, if you wish to... go ahead and exercise that choice :) -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
We all know the command, thank you, its even in the first post, and yes we all know that we can execute the command. What you fail to see here is , that this is unsuppoprted and therefor may or may not continue to be valid in the next release. We are simply discussing the stupidity of the new default behaviour. After reading all the comments, i am still missing *any* advantages of the new behavior, whatsoever. (sry MPT i know you are trying to explain your point, but the other side has the better arguments) I urge MPT or any other dev here to point out what the advantages are of this change, which were not disproved here or in the ML. I am sorry guys, i know the Ubuntu devs are doing a very nice job, but this particular change is just wrong.+ There is no shame in admitting a mistake and listen to the community. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Jonathan Marsden wrote: I'm slightly bewildered that so many here apparently feel that bothering to read the Jaunty Release Notes and doing what they suggest, to restore the old approach, is impossibly difficult... or something? As _dan_ said, we're all very aware of the fix. I'd say most of us are using it. But the problem is that this isn't supported. It's an official unofficial work-around to restore deprecated behavior. We who are arguing against the new behavior are doing so *because* it is the new behavior -- the official behavior -- and think it is a move in the wrong direction. We want to improve Ubuntu, not find workarounds to suit our own preferences. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: mac_v: A notification that a window has popped up? You mean something like this screenshot? That's how Mac OS 9 did it a decade ago. Its main problem was that there was no direct way to get from the notification to the actual window, violating the principle of direct manipulation; and the same would be true of a Notify OSD bubble. That's why we say notification bubbles should be primarily for notifications that *don't* need an input response (with IMs skating on the edge of that category, because seeing an IM in a notification bubble sometimes makes it unnecessary to switch to the chat window). Now, how to present windows requesting attention when the window list isn't visible is an important issue, not just for updates but generally. The same is true for how to indicate windows that are minimized. If you have ideas about how to do those things, we'd be interested to read them on the Ayatana mailing list. That this bug report is filed under NULL doesn't mean anything like what you seem to think it does; this issue was recorded as needing an item in the Ubuntu release notes, that was done, and the people maintaining the release notes then had no interest in being spammed with further comments irrelevant to them, so they refiled it. ok... i think i misunderstood about the NULL tag. ideally for window attention notification a time repeated window preview as done by compiz would be nice, but the compiz window preview doesnt allow interactions with the preview, whereas Windows7 has copied the idea and allowed interactions[clicking on the preview brings the window to the front] notification i was mentioning for right now was something like the screenshot but notify-osd would be better looking, Also i dont understand what principle of direct manipulation u are mentioning? its only the notify-osd that specifies no interaction but the freedesktop specs allows actions/hyperlinks as listed here org.freedesktop.Notifications.GetCapabilities http://www.galago-project.org/specs/notification/0.9/x408.html#command-get-capabilities so when there are provisions for interactons, leave the notify-osd as it is and add another notification system which allows actions, a notification system which only system process use for notification wich require actions... i'm not sure if u have noticed , i'v added a mockup with screenshots of a concept of notification tags, which could be used as persistent notifications to this page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NotificationDesignGuidelines/Comments since these can contain text and interactions update manager could use this to either open updates window by clicking on the notification /when the mouser over reveals the actions either a direct install or dismiss of the notification / or the notification can remain minimized until the user chooses to install... -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
I want to add an additional point: Not all computers are connected to the internet all the time. Thus, imagine someone that connects to internet, the system finds out that there are updates available, and then the internet conection is closed for, lets say 1 month. What will this user experience during this month? Daily popups? Constant messages in the desktop? This is not an unusual scenario in third world countries, I must say. The previous notification system was totally acceptable in this case. Of course it is obvious that I was completely satisfied with the previous way update notifications were managed. For me, as for others, the result of the new update notification system is that I do less updates. That's because when the popup commes out, I instantly close it because I'm doing something else. Second because, when I am not doing something else, it does not necessarily appears, and I don't remember updating. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
bdoe wrote: I don't see how this could have ever been considered broken to begin with. +1 to this. It's a *notification area*. Granted there are apps which populate it that shouldn't, but how in FSM's name is the *update-notifier* as it was configured in 8,10 previous one of them? And popups? As has been pointed out more than once in these comments, 10 years of abusive web-design practices have taught users to kill popups popunders as fast as possible. They're not helpful or informative, they're either intrusive, or (for Windows users) a sign your system has (again) been compromised. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Paulo J. S. Silva : About updates in the indicator applet: I've been working on a proof-of- concept that does just that. It currently implements indicator messages for updates and needing to reboot. You can find it at http://earth.gkhs.net/ccooke/indicator/ Note that this is only intended to be a proof of concept to see how useful update messages in the indicator are. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
C. Cooke wrote: Paulo J. S. Silva : About updates in the indicator applet: I've been working on a proof-of- concept that does just that. It currently implements indicator messages for updates and needing to reboot. You can find it at http://earth.gkhs.net/ccooke/indicator/ Note that this is only intended to be a proof of concept to see how useful update messages in the indicator are. C.Cooke, looks good , but the updates available are just too much info, rather just splitting the info into X number of security updates are available and X number of softwares updates would be better. the detailed updates info would however show up when the main update window is brought up... also i feel that the indicator applet should have a dynamic changing icon so that the program icon of the application demanding attention is displayed rather than the common envelope icon for all the apps... -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
mac_v: Ah, I should update that screenshot. The list of updates is generated by a modified version of apt-check, a python script included with update-notifier. The modification is now able to associate each updated package with an installed metapackage (such as 'ubuntu-desktop', 'kubuntu-desktop' or 'linux-generic') or, failing that, a package name that can be installed be the add/remove application. Thus, the user will only see updates for the base OS or things they will have installed manually. I'm told the modifications to apt-check at least will be going into karmic - what, if anything, will use them is currently up in the air. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Maybe that mechanism needs a more prominent presentation, but that should really be a separate discussion. While you're having that discussion, my systems are missing updates for days or weeks. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
** Description changed: I am referring to the removal up the update-notifier in the Gnome notification area. The discussion of it is embedded in the thread headed by: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu- devel/2009-February/027416.html Specific messages worth reading are: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2009-February/027434.html https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2009-February/027451.html https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2009-February/027454.html https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2009-February/027437.html https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2009-February/027445.html Matthew Paul Thomas says that the desired behavior is: * When there are security updates, Update Manager will open and show them (plus any other available updates) within a day. * When there are non-security updates, Update Manager will open and show them *one week* after it was last opened (whether it was last opened manually or automatically, and regardless of whether updates were actually installed then). * When there are no available updates, Update Manager will not open automatically at all. Desired by whom? And where was discussion of this change that effects the entire Ubuntu community? Because some percentage of users don't apparently understand that the notification area has meaning, we are not going to use it for updates? Chow Loong Jin raised a valid point that if update notification is now done by opening the entire update manager program, perhaps evolution and similar should open their application UIs rather than use the notification area. And there are concerns about unintended functional consequences of this ill-conceived change, discussed in the thread. Personally, I predict that opening the Update Manager window while people are working will piss off a lot of users when it happens, and may result in them wanting to disable automatic checking. Yes, that'll be highly desirable, won't it? In other words, this change should be corrected, and a notification icon should be displayed when updates are available. 1]To disable the new behaviour and get the old behaviour use: gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false Take into account that this gconf change is not supported. 2]To have the update manager launch immediately when updates are available, use this: - gconftool -s --type string /apps/update- + gconftool -s --type int /apps/update- notifier/regular_auto_launch_interval 0 -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Matthew Paul Thomas said: For example, I'm at a loss to understand why you think a notification bubble timed to appear periodically above everything else would be less annoying than a window that opens once and then sits in the background until you deal with it. For several reasons... A pop-under application has multiple problems, already mentioned: as a pop-under it may not be noticed, if it appears on only one workspace it may not be noticed, and an application window that was not initiated by the user is likely to be dismissed by the user to get it out of the way. And if it *is* closed, the user gets no further reminder of the available updates until further updates are released, regardless of the importance of the current updates. Periodic OSD notification avoids each of these problems. It appears on the current workspace in a noticeable but unobtrusive way, stays for just long enough to deliver its message, then disappears. If the period is sufficiently long enough -- and especially if that period is configurable by the user (perhaps anywhere from once and hour to once a day, and upon login) -- then it remains a reminder rather than a nagging annoyance. And if it is coupled with a notification area icon, then the user has an unobtrusive persistent notification of any available updates in addition to the intermittent transient reminder of important updates. If you think of the OSD notification as reminders, with the notification area icon as the actual control, then it doesn't really violate the rule of direct manipulation -- the OSD wouldn't be prompting you to take action, but only reminding you that an action is available. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
wb_guy, I believe there that main use of the notification area is to keep minimized applications that may allow some kind of interaction without opening a full blown window: a media player that allows you to skip the current music or pause, network manager that allow you to turn off the network, bring up an interface or change the wi-fi spot, and so on. In this sense the name notification area is not really good. In your reasoning you forgot this use of the application area, and in my current system all applications I have there allow me to take such simple actions directly from the embed icons. However notifications are not something that you want interact with. They are just something that you should be aware of. However, some notifications are necessarily transient (the screen brightness was changed to save energy, or the network is up). They can be shown using the new, and beautiful, notification bubbles. Other notifications may be queued to dispatch further action (such as reading emails, reading RSS feeds, or updating the system). In this case the action is simple: open the full blown application. For emails, open the MUA window, for RSS feeds open liferea (or you preferred feed reader), for IM messages open the chat application, for upgrades open update-manager. You should keep such notifications somewhere, in this case I believe the right place is the indicator-applet, that allow you to see them and quickly open the right application. I do believe that the icon for the indicator-applet should change from the envelope to something more neutral (like the i letter in the official icon). It would also be nice to have different icons for different cases (for example no notification in the queue, some notifications in the queue, and urgent notifications - like system upgrades - in the queue). -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Paulo J. S. Silva: That is indeed how the notification area is currently used, an is also, I believe, why the developers believe it to be broken. That's not what it was intended to do. My argument is that just because something is abused, it doesn't mean it's no longer appropriate for it's intended use. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Yes. I remember reading Mr. Shuttleworth speaking of possibly removing one of the two panels sometime. I'm all for simplicity, but there is such a thing as OVER-simplicity. I believe Mac is the perfect example of that. The OS is designed to be SO simple and SO clean that navigating it is a huge headache. I remember before the dock existed on previous MacOS versions and how painful it was to find one out of five windows. Now, even with the dock I find it difficult to navigate as you can only access a window if it is minimized first. the only way to reliably choose what window you want focused is to use exposé, which can make things REALLY confusing if you have more than ten windows. Also, one mouse button! It's too oversimplified! If we start purging everything, then there won't be anything left to work with. If anything needs to be cleaned up, it's the System/Administration folders. They don't make any sense. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: bdoe: If you are still having this problem, I suggest subscribing to the http://www.ubuntu.com/usn feed, and then reporting a bug the next time a package you have installed shows up there without Update Manager opening within a day. We'd take that very seriously. I'm absolutely certain now that the window did pop as it was supposed to, but I had dismissed it without seeing what it was. This goes back to one of my major complaints about this new notification method: Once dismissed, the window was gone for good, and I had no further reminders of the updates. The window popped again for me today, with new updates. This time, I heeded it. Unfortunately, I had to stop everything I was doing so that I could service the update window - this in lieu of dismissing the window again and forgetting about the updates. I stand by my assertion that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the old method of popping an icon in the notification tray, and would like to see it re-implemented. If needed, have the icon pop along with an accompanying OSD-notification that New Updates are Ready to Install, flash the icon until the OSD goes away, then leave the icon persistent until the updates are installed. I don't see how this could have ever been considered broken to begin with. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
in one of my systems, i have 10 desktops, and the update manager opens on one of them. which one? not sure how that is determined. sometimes it is opened on a desktop i haven't used in a while, or won't use in a while. so i don't see the update notification for potentially a long period. what a stupid decision in order to clean up the notification area lol. come up with something better. open the update manager on all desktops at least -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
On Mon, 2009-05-04 at 16:12 +, scar wrote: open the update manager on all desktops at least Oh yeah, that's much better. Annoying * $number_of_desktops. Talk about getting right in somebody's face. Surely it's obvious by now that this was a very ill-thought out decision. I've said it before but I will repeat, if there is a better implementation of this idea down the road, then that's fine. Show it to us when it's done and stop inflicting half-baked, annoying ideas on the general user-base. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Hi, Long thread. After reading it and trying to get informed about the new notification system I have come to the conclusion that there is a natural solution for this in the new framework: the indicator-applet. Here is its description: A small applet to display information from various applications consistently in the panel. The web site states that The first revision is focusing on messaging applications. However, there is nothing said there about it being limit to message applications only in the future (as message #127 - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update- notifier/+bug/332945/comments/127 - seems to imply). It seems like this applet was created exactly to solve the most important problem described in this long thread: the notifications are not permanent and once dismissed won't leave a reminder behind. The same is true for the new mail or new message from MUA's and IM, however the new framework already acknowledges this fact and created the applet to keep reminders of those events. Why not use it for the update- notifier events? I am thinking about something along this lines: 1) Once an update is available show a bubble and leave a reminder in indicator-applet. The reminder in the applet should show two states (only simple upgrades and security updates). 2) If the reboot dialog is dismissed leave a reminder in the applet until next reboot. 3) The other reminders like restart firefox and so on don't need to leave a trace behind (this is certainly open for debate, I don't remember receiving a reminder that needed to leave a note behind but the reboot one). 4) If the user doesn't do the update suggested in the indicator-applet after a certain period of time, open up upgrade-manager like it is done today in jaunty. However this time frame should be user configurable. Maybe (and probably), I am being naive here, but it seems like this idea could make everyone happy: 1) The notification area is not abused 2) The new notification system (which is great), is used 3) The upgrade notifications leave a trace behind and are visible at the moment the upgrade is available 4) The reboot notification leaves a trace behind (and hence can not be completely ignored) 5) The new behavior of opening the update-manager to encourage the upgrade is still there. Obs: I know that this is not the right forum to post such a message. However, I tried to subscribe to Ayatana project mailing list in the URL suggested above https://lists.canonical.com/mailman/listinfo/ayatana-project And it returned No such list ayatana-project. If a member of the Ayatana team reads this and find it appropriate, please forward this message or contact me to point me to the right forum Obs2: Yes, I really dislike the new update-notifier behavior. IMHO it is a major UI regression. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
My problems with that solution, Paulo J. S. Silva, are that A) you're essentially just replacing the notification area with the indicator applet, and B) messages in the indicator applet aren't as visible and therefore are more likely to go unnoticed than the regular notification area icon. From what I've seen, the indicator applet is currently a bit of a joke. Granted, I don't use Evolution, but I had never seen the indicator applet at all until I decided to set up Pidgin to get on IRC. Suddenly, I have a strange new icon that looks like an envelope. It doesn't seem to indicate that I've received a message -- though the notification OSDs do so nicely. In fact, all it seems to actually do is to tell me I have Pidgin open -- which I already know, since I have Pidgin open! Even if I minimize it, it's there in the program list. It seems to me that the indicator applet is just a more compact version of the notification area applet, and I don't see how it's going to be any better as a solution. I personally believe it would be worse, if for no other reason that the one I stated above. If people believe that the notification area is broken now, they'll be saying the same thing about the indicator applet once every application is spamming it with useless messages. The simple fact is that a notification area icon is a visible, persistent, non-intrusive form of notification, and a notification OSD is a visible, transient, non-intrusive form of notification. Why can't we simply use a combination of these two existing forms of notification for -- guess what! -- notifying the user of updates? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And considering that the only icons I ever regularly see in my notification area are the Network Manager applet, Power Manager applet, Bluetooth applet, and Update Manager applet, I still don't see how it's broken. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
I agree with mb_webguy. The new indicator-applet seems to be created to replace the notification area. Currently it only displays Pidgin's notifications (at least for me). The problem with this approach is that the indicator applet is good only if it displays the notifications coming from a single application. Why? Because there is only a single icon for it displaying that something happened now how should I know from which application the notification comes from? I must click that icon for that information. This I consider bad usability comparing to what we had until now, when I could clearly tell just by looking at it that Pidgin or some other app with its own icon there wants to notify me about something. Simply there are applications which I want to be running all the time, but do not want them to take up place in my window list or task bar. So the notification area is a perfectly good place for them. Maybe we should stop calling it notification area, and give it another name. Maybe it would be nice to have two of these areas: one for system controls like changing the volume, displaying CPU temperature, etc. and one for the programs the user starts like Pidgin, or some email client, etc. The perfect solution for this problem (for me) would be that we have a transient notification using notify-osd, and a persistent one by displaying the well-known yellow updates are ready icon in the notification area. sarcasmWait! Isn't that what we had until now, minus the notify-osd popup?/sarcasm Don't fix what ain't broke! Especially if the new solution isn't better. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
mac_v: A notification that a window has popped up? You mean something like this screenshot? That's how Mac OS 9 did it a decade ago. Its main problem was that there was no direct way to get from the notification to the actual window, violating the principle of direct manipulation; and the same would be true of a Notify OSD bubble. That's why we say notification bubbles should be primarily for notifications that *don't* need an input response (with IMs skating on the edge of that category, because seeing an IM in a notification bubble sometimes makes it unnecessary to switch to the chat window). Now, how to present windows requesting attention when the window list isn't visible is an important issue, not just for updates but generally. The same is true for how to indicate windows that are minimized. If you have ideas about how to do those things, we'd be interested to read them on the Ayatana mailing list. That this bug report is filed under NULL doesn't mean anything like what you seem to think it does; this issue was recorded as needing an item in the Ubuntu release notes, that was done, and the people maintaining the release notes then had no interest in being spammed with further comments irrelevant to them, so they refiled it. Chauncellor: That Mark has commented here several times is actually an unusually large involvement on his part for an issue that is tiny in the grand scheme of things. With some worthy exceptions (e.g. mac_v, Peter Whittaker, and George Dhoore), the comments in this bug report have largely repeated points made in the mailing list discussion, which he also saw. puntarenas: That live.gnome.org page describes one possible design for Gnome 3, generated in an October 2008 brainstorming session before Notify OSD was even announced. It does not necessarily reflect the final design for Gnome 3, Ubuntu, or anything else. Vincenzo Canza: Sorry, I hadn't seen that question before, and I don't understand why you're special-casing the default intrepid desktop. I've already given part of the answer in https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu- devel/2009-February/027568.html (Until now, Ubuntu has often used persistent interactive notification bubbles for these kinds of things...). The rest of the answer is that Ubuntu isn't yet sophisticated enough to handle some of those cases. For example, when a hard disk starts failing, 8.10 did not (and 9.04 probably doesn't) open a window unprompted warning of this; instead, ironically, it opened an indefinite series of Nautilus windows unprompted. http://ask.metafilter.com/118440/Why-does-my-File-Browser-keep-opening On the Ctrl+Alt+Backspace issue, I am not remotely suggesting that forum users are stupid. It was perfectly understandable and predictable that they would vastly overestimate the proportion of potential Ubuntu users for whom that key combo is more useful than harmful. That was my point: they're not a representative sample of users. mb_webguy: It may be possible to provide a notification without interruption that is effective for most potential Ubuntu users, but I don't know what it would look like. For example, I'm at a loss to understand why you think a notification bubble timed to appear periodically above everything else would be less annoying than a window that opens once and then sits in the background until you deal with it. (And as I have explained previously, that the window belongs to an application is irrelevant. https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/332945/comments/127) I welcome other ideas, though. getut: It is not true that Users have no choice with the Ubuntu updater. Not only is its behavior configurable, but if you have used Synaptic or apt-get or any other update mechanism since the updates became available, Update Manager will stay away. George Dhoore: Those are interesting and well-thought ideas, thank you. For #1, even if we solved the learnability problem, we'd still need to make the icon reliably noticable, and it's not clear how we'd achieve that without being more annoying than (for example) just opening the updates window. Consider the case where you've been putting off installing updates for a few hours, and now Ubuntu coincidentally detects that your hard disk is failing as well. How would you communicate this greater urgency? I suggest exploring this idea further with some mockups on the Ubuntu wiki, and mailing the Ayatana list about them. For #2, it seems the biggest problem would be the amount of space it would consume, especially on netbooks. bdoe: If you are still having this problem, I suggest subscribing to the http://www.ubuntu.com/usn feed, and then reporting a bug the next time a package you have installed shows up there without Update Manager opening within a day. We'd take that very seriously. Ralph Green: Best of luck! We look forward to seeing, on the Ayatana list, the results of your experiments. Paulo J. S. Silva: I will be responsible for the design of the messaging menu in Karmic, so I
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
MPT: Thanks for keeping me in check. I did a search through all Mark Shuttleworth posts and notice that he did, in fact, post here quite a bit. My apologies, I was under the impression that he only posted twice before he changed the status. That said, I will state that I can definitely understand the decision to disable zapping by default for Jaunty. Though I've never had accidents, that is something I can support even if I'd rather it not happen. There's always the magic sysrq keys if there's an emergency and zapping is disabled, so the backup plan is fairly good. While I can see the motivation to take the updater out of the system tray, I cannot understand the methodology behind the execution. The general consensus is extremely negative to this, and I'm probably including those that do not have a launchpad account. I have a dear old teacher friend of mine that went insane for a while with all those popup windows that got in her way while she was doing things. She couldn't STAND It. What I'm wondering is, do you think that there could be a fix released so that until this project Ayatana is finished, the default intrepid behavior is applied? I guess there's no stopping this decision for new notifications, but I'd risk saying that nearly 90 percent or more people don't like it. My roommate was turned off by it when I gave him Jaunty on an external, even. I'll support Shuttleworth's ideas in the future, but this seems to parallel the implementation of Pulseaudio in Hardy: Well-meant, but disastrous. Thankfully, though, I only had to open terminal once this time around. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Uwe Schilling wrote: Well, it need not be a ticker, it need not be animated,Or it could be animated by default and there is an option to turn off the animation. Or the ticker is moving through just once and then stays still until the mouse hovers over it, or ... I basically just wanted to suggest the title bar of all windows as a place where notifications could take place. @Uwe, how often do people look at the title bar? NEVER i hardly ever notice it... people usually notice the content of the window, not the titlebar. so it wouldnt serve the purpose of being noticed would it? even if it was in a different color the chances are that it would never get noticed. and a scrolling/animated ticker would be distracting/irritating... -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Howdy, I was ignoring this behavior on my Jaunty systems at first. I thought it was a bug that would be fixed soon. I see others agreed that it was a bug, but it does not look like it will be fixed. So, I have been thinking about what to do. First, I have to say that I like the notification OSD messages. They are great for messages that should not last. And, I am grateful that Matthew Paul Thomas understands that voting is a horrible way to decide issues of interface design. But, there is a real problem here. Mr Shuttleworth let the discussion go on for a while before he stepped in and made his decision. It was not the decision I wanted, but I would say he was respectful about it, so lets not complain, but do something constructive. I don't have this idea completely worked out, but here is what I propose to start. First, what I want to accomplish is the following. 1. The Update manager should never pop up on the user screen without their having requested it. 2. There should be a way for the user to have some indication that fixes or updates are available. I think my first attempt will be based upon conky. I use it on crunchbang and it seems to work fine. I have not used it on regular Ubuntu, so there could be disadvantages to be found. I have already configured automatic updates to be off. I'll do that for any machine I setup now for people. My hope is that I can create a configuration that others can use and package or document it. Ubuntu can proceed as they have and people who don't like the automatic running of update manager will at least have an option. I saw the gconf hack. That might not be a bad way to fix it for a while. But, I want some fix that I can carry with me to future versions of Ubuntu and I gather that the gconf route may only work for a while. I have not created projects at Launchpad before and I am not sure what the best way to do this will be. I don't know if I will be creating a ppa on Launchpad or not. Wish me luck, Ralph -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: bdoe: If there are security updates waiting in the archive and Update Manager doesn't open within a day, please report a separate bug about that. However -- and I apologize in advance if this affects your sleep -- it has never been true that if there's no icon up there indicating important security updates, then my system is truly secure. A vulnerability may be found and exploited by bad guys before being found by good guys; once it is identified by good guys, it may be hours before it is fixed in a way that the developers are confident won't break anything else; after that, Launchpad may take up to an hour to rebuild the fixed package (depending on the complexity of the package); after that, there may sometimes be an embargo of hours or days agreed with other OS vendors; after it is released from embargo, it will be between 0 and 60 minutes before the new package is published in the Ubuntu archive; and after that, it will be between 0 and 24 hours until your computer next checks for security updates. This is all true regardless of whether that last step involves a notification area icon or the updates window itself. I can't file a bug report on something I don't know exists. Like I stated, I may well have simply closed the window in a fit of desktop-cleaning, without realizing what the window was. I will probably never know, because once the window is closed, there is no further indication that I need to update my system unless I manually invoke Update Manager or another security update comes along (assuming I don't once again dismiss the window after it pops up and annoys me). With the notification icon (aka. old behavior), there is nothing I can do to dismiss the icon short of updating my system; nor would I have any reason to dismiss the icon prematurely, since it is completely unobtrusive. As for your point about my system never being truly secure: I understand that. I was being facetious. but the FOSS community has generally been far more responsive to discovering and patching security flaws than certain monoliths (*cough*Microsoft*cough*) who have gone on record for leaving major security flaws unaddressed for about nine months or so ( /http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/01/internet_explorer_unsafe_for_2.html)/... -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Well, it need not be a ticker, it need not be animated,Or it could be animated by default and there is an option to turn off the animation. Or the ticker is moving through just once and then stays still until the mouse hovers over it, or ... I basically just wanted to suggest the title bar of all windows as a place where notifications could take place. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
A ticker?. Upgrade to the new Ubuntu Karmic Koala - Firefox Needs to be restarted - Upgrade to the new Ubuntu Karmic Koala - Firefox Needs to be restarted No thank you. I personally don't see anything wrong with the icon in the tray and the OSD notifier reminding a user of critical updates every day. I'm so excited with this GConf hack, when I get notified I look at it and think to myself, What a perfect process of updates. Apple has the never-ending BOUNCING, Windows spams like it's fresh outta the can, but this really does a child good. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
There is NOTHING MORE ANNOYING, bar none, than having windows pop up uncommanded. how about turning a blind ear to a flood of unhappy comments? I'd say that's more annoying by far... -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Also I would like to point out that if you make use of virtual desktops feature I have 9 desktops It very very easy to miss the pop up as on my machine it shows on desktop one while i tend work on other desktops and have firefox open on full screen on desktop one. just totally missing the popup till i click shutdown and i briefly show as X closes -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
I wouldn't consider having to go through updates before shutdown much better than what's happening now (though it is slightly still better). Before long, Ubuntu is going to be known as the next-gen spamming OS, or the ultimate Windows clone, or some other derogative phrase. I'd like to keep my favorite open-source project clean -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
According to live.gnome.org, we will se a new notification center in Gnome 3 (2.30?!): New Panel The top panel will have the following major areas. [...] Notifications center containing a dropdown with a stack of recent notifications and an indicator of how many new notifications there are and how urgent they are if the notifications are being hushed. [...] There will be no bottom panel. The task list will be available via the overlay mode or the sidebar. http://live.gnome.org/Boston2008/GUIHackfest/WindowManagementAndMore So does this mean upstream Gnome will put an end to notify-osd and the pop-under behavior for update-interruption after karmic? If so, please officially support the old behavior from now on. People have been reporting first issues with restoring the old behavior but as far as I understand we cannot file bugreports against nonofficial features. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
On Fri, 2009-05-01 at 17:00 +, Richard Thomas wrote: Also I would like to point out that if you make use of virtual desktops feature I have 9 desktops It very very easy to miss the pop up as on my machine it shows on desktop one while i tend work on other desktops and have firefox open on full screen on desktop one. just totally missing the popup till i click shutdown and i briefly show as X closes Sarcasm alert... No, no, no. The popup should pop up onto every desktop/screen you have, and your ipod and iphone, and television while you are right in the middle of The Young and the Restless. Get with the program son. Sorry. Just thought this thread needed a bit of humour. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
2009/5/1 Richard Thomas xpd...@gmail.com: Also I would like to point out that if you make use of virtual desktops feature I have 9 desktops It very very easy to miss the pop up as on my machine it shows on desktop one while i tend work on other desktops and have firefox open on full screen on desktop one. just totally missing the popup till i click shutdown and i briefly show as X closes Luckily your system isn't prone to security issues when it's switched off :) -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: mb_webguy: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2009-February/027568.html *Nothing* in that post justified the automatic opening of applications without direct user action. *Every* example you named would best be handled by some sort of transient or persistent notification, and *not* by having an application open automatically. As getut and John Clemens have said, there is a huge difference between a notification and an interruption. Automatically opening applications is the latter. You seem to think that the user *should* be interrupted for certain events, but I vehemently disagree. You *don't know* what the user is doing, or how vital that activity may be. Interrupting the user's activity could be considerably more detrimental than for the user to respond immediately to the event of which you're notifying him. A user should be notified of an event, with an indication of its importance and the required action, but should his current activity should *not* be interrupted. A notification, no matter how prominently displayed, does not have to be an interruption. Furthermore, opening an application doesn't even achieve your goal! An application that is opened without being initiated by the user will most likely be promptly closed, especially if it opens over other windows. An application that appears under other windows may be ignored or go unnoticed. Applications tend to open on a single workspace, and applications on other workspaces may likewise be ignored or go unnoticed. Applications that open on all workspaces are even more obtrusive and more likely to be closed simply to get it out of the way. An application that automatically opens itself will make inexperienced users, especially those coming from the Windows world, anxious and concerned about viruses and other intrusions into their system. Experienced users will only become annoyed. In neither case is the user experience improved, or the system made more secure. Users want to be in control of their systems. Yes, less knowledgeable users need to be alerted of events in a more noticeable manner than simply an icon in the notification area. I have absolutely no problem with that. But an icon in the notification area is an appropriate method of providing users persistent notifications, especially of events that do not require immediate attention -- such as the availability of non-critical updates. OSD notifications are excellent but only appropriate for transient notifications, and can be used to bring the persistent notification icon to the user's attention, especially for more important events that require more immediate attention -- such as the availability of critical updates. They can even be timed to appear periodically to remind the user of that action should be taken -- such as that the user has still not installed those critical updates. And OSD notifications do this without interrupting the user's activity or taking control away from the user. The combination of these two methods do exactly what is needed to alert users of necessary action. Automatically opening an application does *not*. It is ineffective, an annoyance, and takes control away from the user, fomenting confusion and distrust in the system. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Changing the way users are notified of important information is a noble and worthwhile goal. I agree that a tiny icon can not convey much useful information to the users. On the other hand, notifying users of something with a pop-under window is far from ideal. Applications should not run unless I ask one too. This update was premature without a better way to notify users already in place. The fix then, is to improve the way users are notified by applications or the OS. This will require several things in order to improve on both the old icon notification behavior and the current opening of an unrequested application behavior. 1. It must convey more information than an icon can provide. 2. It must be persistent if need be. 3. It must not open an additional application or otherwise forcibly interrupt a user's work. I see two fixes for this. 1. An application that gathers notifications from other applications. It pops up in the current notification area and lets you know that other applications or the OS wishes to let you know something. When clicked upon it gives a list of current applications with notifications. Clicking then on the application in the list will give you a detailed and verbose message. The computer needs to be rebooted after those last updates. Firefox must be restarted There are 12 new updates available, 3 of which are critical security fixes. etc. The problem with this approach is we again have to convey to the users via an icon that this is something they should click on for more information. This can be worked around perhaps with libnotify popping up briefly and telling a user that they should click on the icon for more information. Eventually a user would be at the computer for one of these and notice it and learn what the icon means. Also, each application would have to be changed to work with this new system. 2. A portion of the desktop be reserved for such notifications. No icons would be able to be dragged into this location and accidentally cover it up for instance. (Say a 'sidebar' location on the right hand side of the screen). In this 'sidebar' would be a list of recent messages from the applications or OS to which the user should be notified. It should have enough room for a basic message Updates available, Please restart computer, etc and a way to click on this new 'sidebar' to have the appropriate application either run or move to the front of the screen and acquire user focus. The problem with this approach is that its completely new to everyone and would possibly take substantial coding effort just to get the framework running and more to convert each application to it. It would also be hidden from users who have a window blocking that portion of their desktop. This at least could again be worked around with a brief libnotify message. If they miss it, they'll certainly see it when they close their last window and are prepared to do something else, or stop using the computer entirely. (or on next boot before working) Both of these solutions would require a not insignificant amount of work but would go a long way to solving the original problem that started this whole mess - That the notification area can't really notify of much. I'd love to see a fix make it in time for Karmic, either one of these or some other better approach. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
MPT wrote: Uwe Schilling: You basically restated my point -- assuming that people will see a window that looks like the updates window, and behaves like the updates window, but be able to tell that it's fake solely because it opened automatically. I think that's quite unrealistic, because it would require a much better memory for past actions than people usually have. For example, if you open Update Manager yourself but get a phone call and have to switch to another task in a hurry, and don't return to Update Manager until the next day, you may have no memory of opening it the previous day. (Expecting people to then close it and reopen it, *just in case* the already-open instance was a fake one, would be even less realistic.) Ok, I finally understand the point you are making and I have to admit that the security thread I saw had always existed, at least in parts. However, I still think that the current behaviour of update manager might enhance the possibility of a successful attack. Nevertheless, the other issues brought up here remain valid and I support a different solution than the current one. My two cents: why not use the title bar of each window for notifications. There, they could be a form of a permanent notification, you can have scrolling text to really let the user know what the notification is all about and it something is moving up there it will definitely be noticed. Furthermore, basically every application (except for full-screen applications, which one would not want to interrupt anyway) uses the titlebar, so it would always be visible, no matter, what the user is doing. Just an idea though... -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Uwe Schilling wrote: My two cents: why not use the title bar of each window for notifications. There, they could be a form of a permanent notification, you can have scrolling text to really let the user know what the notification is all about and it something is moving up there it will definitely be noticed. You mean if I have three windows open, I'll have three constant tickers scrolling across my screen? Oh god, no. Usability tests have shown time and again that -- except in very specific applications, such as stock reports -- users completely ignore tickers. Usability tests on web pages actually show that as users grow more experienced, they begin to ignore *anything* that's constantly in motion, such as Flash ads and, yes, tickers. Furthermore, any kind of dancing bear is incredibly annoying and distracting. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: Uwe Schilling: Update Manager doesn't ask for your password unless and until you actually click Install Updates. So you would then be relying on people to think Well, it's asking me for my password just like it usually does when I click that button, but I won't enter it this time because I didn't open the window myself to begin with. That seems far too indirect and obscure to be a realistic defence. I don't understand the point you are making here. Of course, people first have to click the Install Updates button, but that doesn't make any difference. I'll try to clarify my point: suppose some malvolent webpage opens a pop-up which looks just like the update manager, telling you that there are updates to application xyz. Since the real update manager also opens via a pop-up process, people will not suspect anything and click on the Install updates button, not noticing that this is actually a webbrowser window and then enter their password when asked for it. In this way, the webpage gets your system password for free and can do whatever it wants with it, be it a login via ssh or installing a key logger or whatever. My point is that many people will not notice that it is not the real update manager appearing on the screen, because the pop-up window just looks like it. And since the real update manager now also opens via pop-up, the they won't even be suspicious and type in their password. If it really had been the real update manager, they will probably never get to know -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
On Thu, 2009-04-30 at 17:56 +, mac_v wrote: +1 .but the only thing would be to drop beneath in a few seconds * only when the user is working * but *remain persistent until the users returns to the system* and starts to work. That seems a good idea. However, there are a couple use cases where it would be wrong to have it on top but the user would not seem to be working. Watching a full screen video, for example. Perhaps If screen is locked, stay on top until screen is unlocked, then apply default behaviour, stay on top for time T. This is a cleaner use case, I think, fewer what-ifs and exceptions to manage. but i think this would probably not be possible at present, right? probably Karmic? Not even, then, I would think, unless and until those doing the design and coding come to believe that another approach is required. also whats up with no actions in the notify-osd, rather than using the fall back alerts, why not use a good looking notify-osd with actions , when required! My apologies, I don't follow. Do you mean have a button on the semi-transparent notify widget Do Action A? If so, yes, I agree. There should likely be three: Do Action A, Dismiss (notification never returns), Snooze (notification returns sometime later; a default time could be displayed). -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 +1 this is a very nice idea. Also I like to state AGAIN: Why is choice such a big problem for you design people, if you want to remove the icons from the notificaion area by default, ok go ahead. But then give people who do like it the option to bring those icons back somehow!!! James Iry wrote: I want to chime in that the popup behavior is completely irritating. It also doesn't solve the problem it purports to solve regarding users ignoring important updates. When it pops up in the middle of some important task I just cuss and click the close button at which point the update will likely be forgotten until the next time it pops up and I close it, cussing again. Pop under isn't a solution either since things that happen in the background by definition are going to be unnoticed. A completely reasonable solution would be to re-add the notification icon but animate it subtly (a slow flash, bounce, periodic rotation, whatever) for important security updates. That would be far less intrusive than a pop-up but still hard to miss accidentally. The animation could continue until the user acknowledges it in some way (install now, install later, go away). If the user chooses install later the icon could remain until installed but could be non-animated. This would be a persistent low grade reminder that the user still needs to take action. The icon could also reanimate after some number of days of inattention. This should all be integrated with OSD notifications an important security update is available. Similar text should be used as a tool tip for the icon. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJJ+hWJAAoJEC3c23gFjIjfwDcP+wT9F1YYLF+mtMwmaPkhi8/Z bM3/UE+8WP8l7Vh0pfNSW1/juRbV7iwCNXcCC8roVsmWgMx9MnQxkAIuo1443LCz cbdXszUw8Wx5gPriJBXz+HTj6bzAtweqvU2E2CyY5d9Dfyo3xpYV7r8/H3naCcK9 Wl1epKRmFkS/KZ+2eFHZYE2tYTeSBvQJrWGkCS6UN267EzpgOhStKvv1zh/p9YTG EZ4P2EPk4sNUL11XMdFoThPTIu8FTPuV+TAqfcXECeveA7JfNbhoeEnlqZ+hfsEb iMUj/dqWLflQaOXm6SDrle2XDNxmRAJ2hiwLM3SazYHkdGnwMu+8j/04xm2IdLH2 1kuxa7FR5VQJf+meBJENNFzBVjNm/nxLLazuGmCow41PIbnNyrrFXxzvFD2vDFAJ 4fgIlf9OGMIWOrND/qA6mF/0PgpiXSX4a1dl1Jnnpzilj8L3lvMqOjg7g95n+uND 9bo+DOjVfK92KBH9Pgqe6LcYMgK3STjZWBJ/BG59OcZnwM87FMycjJJ18+3WDqUx prXZPyKlADe+RgufnjeD6VWq+Fhls3c7eGrl7h4iPPQ/KpAIwRLQGkQWRkNRHCo/ MW6m0XuL7WkpkLU3PhT6Sx14B2nxjKLgAJsGv9qiNYyIbuS1ZRvPymgH/uoCwHDb NsHO5wfjDt+6qAq0TzPv =mRcl -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Peter Whittaker wrote: Watching a full screen video, for example. i dont think that full screen video/any video are a problem, since gnome-screen saver recognizes when videos are playing, something similar probably could be worked in for detection. but the real problem will be with flash firefox videos, gnome-screen saver doesnt recognize them yet.! but even then,it wont be a bother as much as the screensaver taking up the whole screen! Not even, then, I would think, unless and until those doing the design and coding come to believe that another approach is required. i think they DO realize that the present method isnt perfect[well thats what Matthew accepts], they just havent realized a better solution... why dont u mock up something for the UDS / ayatana discussions? maybe people might agree this time. Do you mean have a button on the semi-transparent notify widget Do Action A? If so, yes, I agree. There should likely be three: Do Action A, Dismiss (notification never returns), Snooze (notification returns sometime later; a default time could be displayed). yeah, in the notify-osd wiki, it says no action buttons allowed,and that in cases where actions buttons are to be used, fall back alerts are to be used, WHY? that is a good looking notification system, why not use it with color coding to notify important stuff like, updates? that is one of the reasons update notifier cannot be done with notify-osd... -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
2009/4/30 Matthew Paul Thomas m...@canonical.com: Matt Wheeler, LanoxxthShaddow: We removed the icon because we're trying to reduce the number of items in the notification area, and update- notifier was an easy one to start with because Notify OSD forced us to solve the 'Click the icon'? What icon? problem anyway. And I would reiterate my point that I think that decision was wrong. Regardless of whether you have the update-manager window opening automatically, I think the notification icon should remain. I think (like many others that have commented) that a persistent notification is important. As I've said, I'm now more happy with the idea of a self-opening update-manager having seen it work for someone else (although I was at the same guy's house earlier today and noticed he was annoyed that it had popped up while he was trying to work, it will probably still have the end result that he installs his updates more quickly). If the notification icon appeared at the same time as the window, and remained there until the updates were installed, he would be more likely to remember to install his updates (they were not new today) when he finished working, rather than just forgetting. I know you will probably say 'the notification icon should not be there', but I disagree, I think this if anything is one thing that *does* have a right to be in the notification area. It is a *notification* of the state of the system. -- Matt Wheeler m...@funkyhat.org -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
I've refrained from the conversation thus far, because I wanted to read through all of the comments first. But as someone interested in HCI, this is an issue of particular interest to me, and I feel like I need to add my opinion. Applications should *never* open without explicit action by the user. This smacks of malware popups in Windows, and makes users feel less like they are the one in control of their own system. It doesn't matter whether Update Manager opens above or below windows, because it shouldn't be opening automatically in the first place. In addition to fostering the users' mistrust, it would almost certainly only result in click-through behavior as users try to get rid of the offending spontaneously-opened window. The notification area is not, IMO, broken, as has been stated by others. It is certainly *misused*, and I agree with the idea of moving things out of the notification area that don't belong there. There is little reason, for example, for a program to have a constant icon in the notification area, or to minimize to the notification area. (Of course, these things can only be fixed by the software developers, so there's not much we can do about it.) But when used *correctly*, the notification area is perfect for what it is designed for -- non- intrusive persistent notifications. Notify OSD is great for transient notifications, but lousy for persistent notifications. And update notifications definitely fall into the persistent category. So here's my suggestion. Go back to the old behavior, with a slight modification. The old notification icon should appear in the notification area when any updates are available, and remain until the updates are installed or selected to be ignored just as it did before. But in addition to the familiar notification icon, a Notify OSD notification should alert the user when important updates are released, and continue to appear at login and perhaps periodically (e.g. once an hour, or every 6 hours) until the important updates are installed. But the Update Manager should most definitely *not* be opened without direct user action. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Is this still up for discussion, or are we expected to just eat this one (in reference to the Confirmed - Won't Fix status)? There is NOTHING MORE ANNOYING, bar none, than having windows pop up uncommanded. Having windows open surreptitiously underneath everything I'm doing is sneaky, underhanded, and not likely to be noticed for days. The notification icon did its job, and it did it well. This new change does not serve the Ubuntu userbase well at all. Here's the reason I am here posting this right now: I went searching for an existing bug report in hopes of determining why I hadn't seen an update notification since I installed Jaunty a week ago. I became quite concerned when I manually launched Update Manager and noticed a slew of Security Updates in there. Why wasn't I informed of this? I asked myself. Why did I have to go manually LOOKING for these updates? There was no notification of the IMPORTANT SECURITY UPDATES. None. If a window had popped up at some point of time over the past week, I probably closed it without realizing what it was. Since I got no further notification of important updates, I figure this new behaviour assumes that if I dismiss the popup/popunder window that comes up, then I don't care about the update, because there is no persistent notification. No icons, no indication of any kind that my system could be vulnerable to attack because of uninstalled security updates - security updates uninstalled because I was not aware that there were any to install. Please bring back the notification icon. If for no other reason, so it can keep my volume control applet icon and network-manager icon company up there. They do get lonely. And I would sleep better at night knowing that, if there's no icon up there indicating important security updates, then my system is truly secure. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 11:20 AM, Matthew Paul Thomas m...@canonical.comwrote: John Clemens: The issue of trying to guess when is the best time to interrupt people is a tricky problem for notifications in general. As getut pointed out, you're conflating interruption with notification. Notifications, like an icon appearing in the notification area and a transient bubble saying hey, you have updates is not an interruption. Notifications can happen at any time, you don't need to guess the best time. This is how they work in Intrepid. Interruptions are opening full blown applications that require user interaction without the user requesting them. You have chosen to interrupt people, which is where I think you're wrong. There is another way... Unfortunately, never is not a viable choice for a mass-market OS on an Internet-connected computer. If you have specific suggestions of heuristics we could use to choose more appropriate times, we'd be delighted to hear them. You're presenting a false choice. Noone is saying you shouldn't notify users of updates. A persistent notification of updates are available is EXACTLY what we want... like we had in intrepid. I can not suggest any heuristics for you, because it's impossible for update manager to know when would be a good time to update. The only entity that has that information is the user, so stop trying to make a decision for them. You're only guessing, and most of the time you're wrong. I design software all the time, and the first thing you look at when looking at an architecture diagram is find out if each part has enough knowledge to make the decision it needs to make. You need two pieces of information to install updates: 1) that updates are available, and 2) when would be a good time to install them. Update manager can only know number 1, the user is the only one who knows number 2. The proper thing to do in this case is tell the user there are updates available, and let them choose when to install them. The update manager notification method in intrepid understood these truths and acted accordingly. You would argue that opening update manager is a persistent notification, and I would disagree. It's a transient interruption. I've kept the jaunty way running on my box for a few days.. and I hate it. People, myself included, close the update window because we're annoyed at being interrupted, without installing updates. Once closed, there is no persistent reminder. In Intrepid, I got a small 20x20 icon that was a constant but unobtrusive reminder. In jaunty I get interrupted with at random intervals (random because of 'security updates', some of which I don't need). Improve the icon if you want, update the verbiage in the notification and tooltip; but don't guess randomly and then throw your arms up in the air when the user closes a random window that showed up and winds up not installing updates, only to repeat the process 7 days later. Please, please reconsider. -- John Clemens cle...@gmail.com -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
The old behaviour is not restored for me .I only see the icon when i manually run update manager.I have set gconf options , i have set auto launch interval of update-notifier to 0 , everything. Its been a week since i have seen the orange icon. Wonder what they did to it. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Matt Wheeler, LanoxxthShaddow: We removed the icon because we're trying to reduce the number of items in the notification area, and update- notifier was an easy one to start with because Notify OSD forced us to solve the 'Click the icon'? What icon? problem anyway. hurga: I agree, I'd rather the window wasn't minimized; see for example http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,100567,10012663o- 2000498448b,00.htm. As for putting this to a vote: just as with most other Free Software projects, interface design in Ubuntu is not, and has never been, driven by votes. We collect valuable ideas from mailing list discussions, forums, bug reports and so on, but vote-driven design would make it extremely difficult for Ubuntu ever to become suitable for an audience wider than those already using it. And I know it's easy for me to say that since I'm actually on the Design team, but if you can find any example of me suggesting put the issue up for a vote about any human interface design issue in any software project ever, I shall wash out my mouth with soap and water at UDS and put the video on YouTube. John Clemens: The issue of trying to guess when is the best time to interrupt people is a tricky problem for notifications in general. Unfortunately, never is not a viable choice for a mass-market OS on an Internet-connected computer. If you have specific suggestions of heuristics we could use to choose more appropriate times, we'd be delighted to hear them. mac_v: My current plan is that corrected settings for Software Sources, and AppCenter 1.0 (not necessarily by that name), will both appear in Karmic. The Brainstorm page you link to has the curious property that all three points in the Rationale are factually incorrect, which is likely to bias the voting even more than the natural bias of people who are interested enough to use Brainstorm in the first place (though again, this isn't about voting). Uwe Schilling: Update Manager doesn't ask for your password unless and until you actually click Install Updates. So you would then be relying on people to think Well, it's asking me for my password just like it usually does when I click that button, but I won't enter it this time because I didn't open the window myself to begin with. That seems far too indirect and obscure to be a realistic defence. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
The issue of trying to guess when is the best time to interrupt people is a tricky problem for notifications in general. Unfortunately, never is not a viable choice for a mass-market OS on an Internet- connected computer. If you have specific suggestions of heuristics we could use to choose more appropriate times, we'd be delighted to hear them. MPT... never IS a perfectly valid answer to INTERRUPTING a user. Most everyone agrees that never is a bad thing when it comes to never NOTIFYING a user and that is the rub with this whole deal. An icon on the desktop subtly notifies the user and is persistent. A window INTERRUPTS the user and takes choice away from the user. That is bad now and always will be. Even as important as a security update is, it is never important enough to open a window unsolicited. Bad sectors on the hard drive, imminent crash, overheating, those types of things would warrant a true interruption. Updates, even security related, just simply do not warrant that immediate attention and force. If people are too unaware to investigate a new icon on the tray or to ignore it for months after it shows up, they deserve a compromised machine. Do not punish 99% of the users out there with forced, aggravating, evil unsolicited windows because of the few who refuse to acknowledge updates. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
On Thu, 2009-04-30 at 15:49 +, getut wrote: The issue of trying to guess when is the best time to interrupt people MPT... never IS a perfectly valid answer to INTERRUPTING a user. +1, mod parent up, etc. At the risk of seeming like I am in love with my own ideas, this was why I proposed the semi transparent, always present, one window down notification widget. It would appear from the top right for system notifications (you should upgrade) and the bottom right for user notifications (you have an IM, email, etc.). The notification would appear above the current window (unless operating fullscreen) but would NOT have focus, then drop beneath after a few seconds. When than window is closed or minimized, the notification would be there, then drop down one again. Repeat as necessary. When all windows are closed/minimized, it would be there, without focus. It would say click here to learn more or something like. Or even click here to take action. It would also always have two other buttons: Snooze and dismiss. To me, this is as good as the persistent icon, since it is persistent, but better since it is always there, until the user takes action. It is better than the current approach, because it is always there, and because it differentiates between system and user notifications. Being semi-transparent and dropping away automatically make it more ignorable. Being present until action is taken make it not-ignorable, but in a far less obnoxious way than popups. Other system notifications (volume changes, network connection changes, etc.) would be ephemeral: Appear, then disappear. No action is required, but sometimes the reminder is nice. There would be defaults for what system and what is user, and these would be determined by the community. Administrators would able to modify the system list (for a machine or group of machines). Users would be able to modify the user list for their account. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
@Matthew: there is a problem with this system, there is no notification of the updates window being popped up, that is what is the surprise of finding a new window that has popped up... if pop up is going to be maintained, then the bare minimum would be to the notify-osd repeatedly show a notification until the window is noticed, other it is a surprise attack of a new window, * the new window appearance needs to be notified * , * the notify osd could be made to repeat itself every x mins* until either the minimized window is noticed or until updates are installed [ *until the updates are installed would be a better option * ], this would be the bare minimum form of a persistent notification for updates, atleast this would make the window a part of a legitimate system process, rather than a malicious code/window. this change to the notify-osd should be an easy solution for this problem, right , or will getting update-notifier to use notify-osd be difficult too ? -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
I want to chime in that the popup behavior is completely irritating. It also doesn't solve the problem it purports to solve regarding users ignoring important updates. When it pops up in the middle of some important task I just cuss and click the close button at which point the update will likely be forgotten until the next time it pops up and I close it, cussing again. Pop under isn't a solution either since things that happen in the background by definition are going to be unnoticed. A completely reasonable solution would be to re-add the notification icon but animate it subtly (a slow flash, bounce, periodic rotation, whatever) for important security updates. That would be far less intrusive than a pop-up but still hard to miss accidentally. The animation could continue until the user acknowledges it in some way (install now, install later, go away). If the user chooses install later the icon could remain until installed but could be non-animated. This would be a persistent low grade reminder that the user still needs to take action. The icon could also reanimate after some number of days of inattention. This should all be integrated with OSD notifications an important security update is available. Similar text should be used as a tool tip for the icon. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Peter Whittaker wrote: On Thu, 2009-04-30 at 15:49 +, getut wrote: The issue of trying to guess when is the best time to interrupt people MPT... never IS a perfectly valid answer to INTERRUPTING a user. +1, mod parent up, etc. At the risk of seeming like I am in love with my own ideas, this was why I proposed the semi transparent, always present, one window down notification widget. It would appear from the top right for system notifications (you should upgrade) and the bottom right for user notifications (you have an IM, email, etc.). The notification would appear above the current window (unless operating fullscreen) but would NOT have focus, then drop beneath after a few seconds. When than window is closed or minimized, the notification would be there, then drop down one again. Repeat as necessary. When all windows are closed/minimized, it would be there, without focus. It would say click here to learn more or something like. Or even click here to take action. It would also always have two other buttons: Snooze and dismiss. To me, this is as good as the persistent icon, since it is persistent, but better since it is always there, until the user takes action. It is better than the current approach, because it is always there, and because it differentiates between system and user notifications. Being semi-transparent and dropping away automatically make it more ignorable. Being present until action is taken make it not-ignorable, but in a far less obnoxious way than popups. Other system notifications (volume changes, network connection changes, etc.) would be ephemeral: Appear, then disappear. No action is required, but sometimes the reminder is nice. There would be defaults for what system and what is user, and these would be determined by the community. Administrators would able to modify the system list (for a machine or group of machines). Users would be able to modify the user list for their account. +1 .but the only thing would be to drop beneath in a few seconds * only when the user is working * but *remain persistent until the users returns to the system* and starts to work . @ Peter but i think this would probably not be possible at present, right ? probably Karmic? also whats up with no actions in the notify-osd, rather than using the fall back alerts, why not use a good looking notify-osd with actions , when required! -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
It is sad to see, but I think this will not be the last big dissapointment. Sure you can't satisfy all users at any time, but what is claimed to be leadership here is the kind of spirit I wouldn't expect from a linux distribution called Ubuntu. The next big hit will probably be the replacement of Rhythmbox through Banshee (Mono) for Karmic, I bet there won't be a lot of public discussions around, they will just do it like they brought that notify-madness in. Don't get me wrong here, I don't want to open another Mono discussion here, it is just that Ubuntu shouldn't ignore and disregard big parts of it's user base on topics people have strong feelings about. This regression and how (late) it came silently to Jaunty made a lot of people feel like noone here cares about the community, leadership more like dictatorship. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Self appointed benevolent dictator for life ;) Torben wrote: It is sad to see, but I think this will not be the last big dissapointment. Sure you can't satisfy all users at any time, but what is claimed to be leadership here is the kind of spirit I wouldn't expect from a linux distribution called Ubuntu. The next big hit will probably be the replacement of Rhythmbox through Banshee (Mono) for Karmic, I bet there won't be a lot of public discussions around, they will just do it like they brought that notify-madness in. Don't get me wrong here, I don't want to open another Mono discussion here, it is just that Ubuntu shouldn't ignore and disregard big parts of it's user base on topics people have strong feelings about. This regression and how (late) it came silently to Jaunty made a lot of people feel like noone here cares about the community, leadership more like dictatorship. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Jamin W. Collins: By gratuitously difficult I meant you had to (1) notice the icon, (2) recall that orange starburst = updates available (possibly assisted by a notification bubble, if you happened to look during the time the bubble was visible), (3) click on it (the panel icon, not the bubble!), and (4) click a button in a separate window. With the behavior I designed, you needed to (1) click the button in the window. With the 9.04 behavior you need to (1) notice the minimized window, (2) unminimize it, and (3) click the button in the window. That's not nearly as good, but it's still easier than the 8.10 behavior, because the window switcher button is (usually much) larger than the icon was. Uwe Schilling, Thomas Nardone: As I have already explained several times, this is far from the only time programs need to open windows unprompted; and conversely, even with a browser blocking popup windows, a determined Web site author can still open popup windows or things that look like windows. Therefore, trying to distinguish real prompts from fake ones by whether they open manually or automatically is dangerously wrong. Better defence mechanisms include making Web windows more obviously non-native (with help from both the browser and the Ubuntu theme), and more informative handling of downloaded executables (Windows Vista and especially Mac OS X do a much better job of that than Ubuntu does). pingou67: The old behavior was, and is, unacceptable with the introduction of Notify OSD. Click on the icon? What icon? Imre Gergely: An option like that would be meaningless to most humans, as you'd discover if you tried to mock it up. Keith Buel: We aim for the point where you wouldn't need to tell your parents *anything* about keeping the computer up to date -- it would be self-explanatory. The icon didn't meet that standard, and never could without disrupting your work like Windows does. The updates window may not meet that standard yet, but we'll fine-tune the design until it does. hurga, James Dowden: You guys are adorable. Noel J. Bergman: I have seen no evidence, in this bug report or anywhere else, of the simple need for a form of persistent notification for software updates. The closest to this I've seen is a problem where alpha testers tried to report crasher bugs on out-of-date packages and were rejected, but apport could be smarter about inviting you to update, and it's not as if Ubuntu is short of bug reports anyway. slithy: You have been misled. There is no other method of handling notifications for updates planned. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: Jamin W. Collins: By gratuitously difficult I meant you had to (1) notice the icon, (2) recall that orange starburst = updates available (possibly assisted by a notification bubble, if you happened to look during the time the bubble was visible), (3) click on it (the panel icon, not the bubble!), and (4) click a button in a separate window. With the behavior I designed, you needed to (1) click the button in the window. With the 9.04 behavior you need to (1) notice the minimized window, (2) unminimize it, and (3) click the button in the window. That's not nearly as good, but it's still easier than the 8.10 behavior, because the window switcher button is (usually much) larger than the icon was. Uwe Schilling, Thomas Nardone: As I have already explained several times, this is far from the only time programs need to open windows unprompted; and conversely, even with a browser blocking popup windows, a determined Web site author can still open popup windows or things that look like windows. Therefore, trying to distinguish real prompts from fake ones by whether they open manually or automatically is dangerously wrong. Better defence mechanisms include making Web windows more obviously non-native (with help from both the browser and the Ubuntu theme), and more informative handling of downloaded executables (Windows Vista and especially Mac OS X do a much better job of that than Ubuntu does). pingou67: The old behavior was, and is, unacceptable with the introduction of Notify OSD. Click on the icon? What icon? Imre Gergely: An option like that would be meaningless to most humans, as you'd discover if you tried to mock it up. Keith Buel: We aim for the point where you wouldn't need to tell your parents *anything* about keeping the computer up to date -- it would be self-explanatory. The icon didn't meet that standard, and never could without disrupting your work like Windows does. The updates window may not meet that standard yet, but we'll fine-tune the design until it does. hurga, James Dowden: You guys are adorable. Noel J. Bergman: I have seen no evidence, in this bug report or anywhere else, of the simple need for a form of persistent notification for software updates. The closest to this I've seen is a problem where alpha testers tried to report crasher bugs on out-of-date packages and were rejected, but apport could be smarter about inviting you to update, and it's not as if Ubuntu is short of bug reports anyway. slithy: You have been misled. There is no other method of handling notifications for updates planned. wait for it... -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
@Matthew P. Thomas: It seems you don't consider people having more than 5 windows open. I'm so used to having a large number of windows that a new one will be left unnoticed for a long time. I might even think I opened it at some point myself and just started doing something else while the update was running, so I'll close it instead of updating. Then there are people with (for example) gimp, which takes 4-5 windows itself. On the other hand people are used to look at the notification area. It's almost empty when the system is installed, so anything bright in that area can be seen as something is different. We look there when a new message comes in, when the network status changes, etc. Anything that is different there notifies the user. Even if the update window had a pulsating window bar, it's not enough for get my attention - many applications do something in the background and turn on notification - I'm used to ignoring it. (firefox download window at least) The icon might get unnoticed in the line of other icons of course, but let's be serious - one of the screenshots posted here before with 20 or so icons - it doesn't happen for sane users. If anyone can put that many icons in their notification are, they are surely aware of the update / install procedure. You cannot create a crowded notification like that without putting a lot of effort into it. In short - if you create a mess, you will live in mess - that's not the reason to change how update works for everyone else. Also there's no colour coding... notification was great - yellow - look at me, red - danger. Reaction to a new window - close. Have you seen non tech-savvy users working with their computer? They usually don't care about open dialogs. They sometimes open some window by accident, so clicking on cancel / close on anything unknown is just something they are accustomed to. Auto-opening the update dialog will not help them at all - unless you make the dialog something like a splash screen that cannot be avoided... in which case it will just annoy even more people. I really don't agree with your listed steps to upgrade. First time users may need to read the tooltip, but with the notification bubble it will be appearing anyways... It's not just about the number of clicks. I'd say it goes more like this: 1. there is a bubble, telling about updates and pointing at the yellow/red icon; that means the icon is for updates 2. use the icon to get updates 3. click the button to get updates With the new system it's: 1. (maybe) Notice a new window bar 2. (in case of us) Think - did I forget to close it after the last upgrade, or was I waiting for package list update to finish, or is it notifying me about new upgrades / (in case of new users) what the hell is going on - did I do that? 3. decide on the next action and do it I think the new system has the potential of wasting my time a couple of times when I leave the system updating, then get back and wonder what was my last action in that window. Was it long ago and should I check for new packages? Did it open like that? Etc. The old system might have been longer when you count clicks, but the effort to understand what's happening in that case was a lot lower. Clicks is not the only thing you should be looking at. I'd prefer system that is nice to me, even if it adds 2-3 more clicks, than something annoyingly getting in my way that needs only 1 click. I'm not sure I can describe my problem more clearly :/ -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
I was initially opposed to this change as a default, but having spoken to a friend who upgraded to Jaunty just after the release I am much happier about the idea of testing it on 'the masses'. My friend, who is quite technical (works in the IT department in a school), said he preferred the new system because before he would just ignore the orange icon (even though he knew what it meant). Is there a reliable way to meter how people respond to updates, compared to how they did in 8.10, so we can know with reasonable certainty that the new system gets more people upgrading? -- Matt Wheeler m...@funkyhat.org -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
adorable hm well i guess so, almost as adorable as defending an idea the majority of people clearly does not want and still pushing it through because of an attitude that smells i know better then you all, therefore the spanking. My Mother and my grandmother use Ubuntu (well i forced em too) and they had *no problem* at all seeing the 8.10 icon, clicking it and installing updates. The first time they read the mouseover popup and knew updates available then they press a button and know updates are coming - all is fine, or was. With the new behavior, i dont know about my grandmother but my mother called me and asked if she had a virus, not because of the change in the system but because the windows opened automatically. No one likes automatically opening windows, its simply not the way it should work. We are used to and trained to see automatically opening windows as malware and for good reason. As a poster before me said, there are people with more than 20 Windows open and more than one Desktop. With the update-manager window opening it can get lost on a desktop or between windows. You can simply close it because you were not paying attention, which most of us are not. With the icon in the systray you can see it on every desktop, clicking it when you feel like it, not have an unwanted window open. I often leave my computer running when i am at the university or go to a friends, because i can ssh in, or listen to my music look at my documents or simple because i am lazy and don't want to turn it of. When the update window pops up when i am not around and i come home 10hours later, i do not remember which windows i had open, i see updatemanager and close it, thinking i didn't close it after last update. With the Icon i come home and see the familiar there are updates icon in the systray. Furthermore i want the updates when they are available not 1 week afterwards. Change it back to 8.10 style, its what the community wants, you can do it your way on your own system and implement an option to do it that way for everyone but the more secure the more accepted and more wanted way is the old behaviour. See all the posts here, see the forum posts, the people simply don't want it. Don't push your own agenda, listen to what people want, after all thats the Ubuntu spirit right? I know it all better than the rest of you guys people don't really carry the Ubuntu spirit IMHO. Yes i know, i am adorable, deal with it. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: Jamin W. Collins: By gratuitously difficult I meant you had to (1) notice the icon, (2) recall that orange starburst = updates available (possibly assisted by a notification bubble, if you happened to look during the time the bubble was visible), (3) click on it (the panel icon, not the bubble!), and (4) click a button in a separate window. With the behavior I designed, you needed to (1) click the button in the window. With the 9.04 behavior you need to (1) notice the minimized window, (2) unminimize it, and (3) click the button in the window. That's not nearly as good, but it's still easier than the 8.10 behavior, because the window switcher button is (usually much) larger than the icon was. Matthew this shows just how biased u are towards the behavior u designed u forgot that the new method also needs a recall + an additional step of wondering when did i open the update window, so the count is _5_ steps for the new system even if u want to count it as 4[recall is definitely a step for new windows] why replace a system ,which u urself acknowledge as not nearly as good ,for the existing working method which involves the same number of steps? if u are not making it easier then why change? the present design DOES NOT make it in anyway shorter or easier, its just ur bias which makes it seem so. a good design should NOT exist only from ones own point of view , but also an unbiased view from all sides... Uwe Schilling, Thomas Nardone: As I have already explained several times, this is far from the only time programs need to open windows unprompted; and conversely, even with a browser blocking popup windows, a determined Web site author can still open popup windows or things that look like windows. Therefore, trying to distinguish real prompts from fake ones by whether they open manually or automatically is dangerously wrong. Better defence mechanisms include making Web windows more obviously non-native (with help from both the browser and the Ubuntu theme), and more informative handling of downloaded executables (Windows Vista and especially Mac OS X do a much better job of that than Ubuntu does). so rather than making it hard u are making it easier for the malicious guys, by creating such security holes ? and telling other softwares to be better at their job for the holes u create? The updates window may not meet that standard yet, but we'll fine-tune the design until it does. why didnt u wait till the design meets the standard? this is like serving uncooked food and saying it would be better when it is fully cooked, what we are saying is why wasnt it fully cooked before being force fed[made a part for the ubuntu-desktop]? I have seen no evidence, in this bug report or anywhere else, of the simple need for a form of persistent notification for software updates. u want an example? the graphics card for my laptop has now changed from fglrx to Ati drivers and i'v been having several abrupt X-session shutdowns even in this completed OS, but this is not a security issue in the real sense, but when i get the updates for this driver i wouldnt be notified until a week later , but what if i get disrupted in the middle of an important work and loose all the work? i'v already had several X restarts several times, but since i NOW save my work regularly i dont loose data as i did initially... guess u are waiting for an evidence to debunk 'your design'... the design is a disaster waiting to happen! atleast for me... another example:just a few days ago firefox released security updates back to back in a couple of days,since it was a security updateit was notified immediately, but for regular updates the interval is 7 days,when an update is done sometimes it might not work well for everyone, only on the release the devs might know about this and correct it immediately, so when u have set the default for 7 days the user has to wait for another update which might have been available the very next day? u could have set the pop-ups to show up ONLY when the user hasnt updated for a considerable amount of time. from ur explanations it just shows ur passion to defend your new design behavior, but the problem is that not once do u acknowledge the design flaws others point out, and consider that it would be looked into, this is what the whole bug report is about the devs are just being close minded to their design and not thinking from a general point of view, and not seriously considering the valid problems several users have raised... -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: I have seen no evidence, in this bug report or anywhere else, of the simple need for a form of persistent notification for software updates. have u considered that these update windows WONT GET NOTICED, when the user is working in other windows and only noticed the new window after all other windows are closed? at the end of the day, when all work is done and when the user is about to shutdown, he notices the update for a huge update[since 7 days of wait], which he could have done while he was working. but now he has to wait for the update to complete before he leaves or if he chooses not to update, he will only be reminded of the update next week, or he has to remember that he needs to update on the next boot? so that adds another 3 - 4 steps[ MEMORIZE to update the system in the morning] to the new design pls dont be close minded while designing! -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Stanislaw Pitucha wrote: 2. (in case of us) Think - did I forget to close it after the last upgrade, or was I waiting for package list update to finish, or is it notifying me about new upgrades so i'm not the only one this happened to me when i got the firefox security update! when previously i had done a manual update a couple of hours earlier without a notification of some sort its always a *magical experience* . -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Matt Wheeler wrote: My friend, who is quite technical (works in the IT department in a school), said he preferred the new system because before he would just ignore the orange icon (even though he knew what it meant). quite technical but doesnt update? wow! and works in the IT department! i wonder what he really teaches? wait till system has problems then its good to understand and analyze? maybe good for learning all the problems one can get into when proper updates are not done... this would have sounded better if it was a non technical person ignoring updates, but this IT person know the risks he runs into by not updating regularly -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Plain and simple... linux is always about choice. People are not going to update their system when the almighty and evil popup/popunder opens and says they should do it. It will almost 100% of the time be an unwanted annoyance window that open at unwanted times and aggravates users instead of helping them. You say that there are other instances of applications that open unwanted windows also. The same goes for them. Justifying bad interface design with other bad interface design is just laughable. There is literally no instance other than critical alarms where unsolicited windows are a good thing. Persistent notifications are the obvious way to handle it. Can anyone give a definite answer on how long the gconf command to revert to old behavior will be supported going forward? It is aggravating enough having a popup/popunder as the default option but will be utterly infuriating if it becomes the ONLY option in the future. I have at built and/or upgraded 5-6 machines to Jaunty for people and have been setting them all to the old behavior at the users request after showing them new and old behavior. Even total greenies to linux have been agreeing that they didn't want unsolicited windows showing up whenever the computer felt like it. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Plain and simple... linux is always about choice. People are not going to update their system when the almighty and evil popup/popunder opens and says they should do it. It will almost 100% of the time be an unwanted annoyance window that open at unwanted times and aggravates users instead of helping them. You say that there are other instances of applications that open unwanted windows also. The same goes for them. Justifying bad interface design with other bad interface design is just laughable. There is literally no instance other than critical alarms where unsolicited windows are a good thing. Persistent notifications are the obvious way to handle it. Can anyone give a definite answer on how long the gconf command to revert to old behavior will be supported going forward? It is aggravating enough having a popup/popunder as the default option but will be utterly infuriating if it becomes the ONLY option in the future. I have at built and/or upgraded 5-6 machines to Jaunty for people and have been setting them all to the old behavior at the users request after showing them new and old behavior. Even total greenies to linux have been agreeing that they didn't want unsolicited windows showing up whenever the computer felt like it. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
getut wrote: Can anyone give a definite answer on how long the gconf command to revert to old behavior will be supported going forward? AFAIK, the gconf method is currently not *supported*. It does work but it is not a *supported* option. So, I believe we have our answer. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
2009/4/29 mac_v drkv...@yahoo.com: Matt Wheeler wrote: My friend, who is quite technical (works in the IT department in a school), said he preferred the new system because before he would just ignore the orange icon (even though he knew what it meant). quite technical but doesnt update? wow! and works in the IT department! He doesn't teach, but that is irrelevant, and confirms my point. If even IT staff are ignoring updates unless they are prompted by a window opening, how many normal users are doing the same? I actually don't like the windows popping up, but I am quite happy setting the gconf key to revert to the old behaviour. If the changes mean more people will keep their system up to date then I think it is a good thing. Actually I think that keeping the orange/red notification icon *as well* as making the window pop up could be a good default, as it would satisfy the desire to have a persistent notification, as well as being a more obvious prompt that something needs to be done. In fact, if an icon in the update-manager window matches the notification icon that would serve to demostrate what the icon in the notification area is for, as well as helping to confirm that this window is trustworthy (notification icon appears at the same time as the window, clicking on the icon focuses the window). -- Matt Wheeler m...@funkyhat.org -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Stanislaw Pitucha: Yes, I have seen non tech-savvy users working with their computers. For five years, I worked in Internet cafés. And this year, we've started user testing of Ubuntu at Canonical. So I'm quite confident in saying that most people ignore the notification area altogether. (Ironically enough, this may be an issue for the new messaging menu, even though it's technically not in the notification area: those we've asked about it so far simply hadn't noticed it.) Like you, I have also seen that alert boxes suck, but they suck less than the alternative. hurga: Bug reports are terrible for discussions like this one, for four reasons: (1) they're text-only; (2) bug trackers in general are (and Launchpad especially is) extremely biased towards highly technical people; (3) the list of subscribers to any given bug report is extremely biased towards those who think the current behavior (whatever it happens to be) is wrong; and (4) that concentration of opinion acts as an echo chamber, so that people work themselves into a lather and end up calling for spankings. Much of the same applies to the Ubuntu Forums, just not quite as strongly: for example, 88% of respondents to an Ubuntu Forums poll in January thought that Ubuntu should have a keyboard combo by default that would crash all your applications. Now, I am *not* saying that the bug tracker or the forums aren't useful; merely that the distribution of opinions expressed in them shouldn't drive human interface design for Ubuntu. mac_v: As I explained in the very text you quoted, we are not creating such security holes: that problem already exists, regardless of Update Manager. As for your food analogy, you are confusing perfect with better. We switched to Notify OSD, with the necessary Update Manager changes, even though it wasn't perfect, because it was already better than the alternative. You make a good point about critical non-security updates (e.g. fixes to graphic driver crashes) vs. security updates, and that's something I'll discuss with other Ubuntu developers as part of the AppCenter work. Perhaps we could have critical and major tiers of updates, instead of security and non-security. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
@Matthew Paul Thomas I do agree that the bug tracker is biased towards people not in favor of this change. Anyhow you are arguing a position here which holds no advantage over the old one and only creates discomfort and needs people to readjust and we all know the human being is a creature of habit and does not like changes, especially when they hold no advantage *at all* I do agree also that some people ignore the icon in the systray, but those ppl will also ignore and possible not even see the minimized window too, so that argument falls flat. (BTW bringing an example about a IT Guy ignoring updates just shows that the IT Guy should not be allowed to administrate a computer) Human interface design, well, i do think that design is flawed, not saying the former design is not flawed (i personally think it was fine). So what should drive the human interface design? A small group of guys changing stuff over the heads of others or the majority? You decide. Bringing up an example of the ubuntuforums, well, does not really fit, old design worked well and did not crash anything. Why not have a vote or something and go with the majority, after all its a matter of taste. I do not see any advantages of that new design, its slower, you get your updates not at once but a week later even if you say give me updates at once, it has no permanent visual input ( i for example have my taskbar/launcher bar (awn) hidden, i only see it when i go with my mouse to the bottom of the screen). So basically i am trading one click on the systray icon for the disadvantage of not being informed properly. I personally think that, sorry for the word, suckz bigtime. If someone is so resistant to learning what the systray icon means (buhu you have to mouse over it) he/she will also never learn what the update- manager window means, so nothing gained. Put the issue up for a vote, where the majority of ubuntu users can vote and don't decide over peoples head. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
On Apr 29, 2009 10:10am, Matt Wheeler m...@funkyhat.org wrote He doesn't teach, but that is irrelevant, and confirms my point. If even IT staff are ignoring updates unless they are prompted by a window opening, how many normal users are doing the same? Unlike mac_v, I will not disparage your IT friend for not installing updates immediately. Sometimes there are valid reasons not to install updates. That updated kernel that contains a security fix for a filesystem I don't use, may actually break my wireless card, or my scsi controller. That new version of open office may break a plugin I'm using. It's happened in the past. In fact, good IT people will often test updates on a test machine before installing on their own systems. This goes for every OS, not just Ubuntu. Remember, almost all updates include new features (potential bugs) as well as bug fixes. Ubuntu can't test everything in your environment, just like Apple or MS can't. Using your logic above, would you prefer to have the entire screen gray out and the update manager pop up and be the only thing you can do? That would force people to update, even your IT friend... but is that a good thing? no. If that's what you want, then you should just install all updates automatically without asking the user. I know it's not what I want... Perhaps it's not a good time to install updates. Like you're at a friend's place with metered internet and don't want to run up their bill, or you're on a cell phone connection, or you're not even on a network at the time. Or your significant other is using your computer when the window comes up, they close it and forget to tell you about it. Instead of having a persistent, small icon in the corner of your screen telling you there are updates when you're ready, you have to maximize the update manager and then close it, and then remember to update at some other time because there's no reminder. See my earlier posts in this thread for use cases like the above which were never addressed. This change forces Ubuntu to make a lot of assumptions about my life and my usage. It's impossible for Ubuntu to know when would be a good time for me to update, therefore opening the update manager at random intervals is annoying, nagging, confusing and counterproductive. And that's without getting into the argument over whether auto-launching full, interactive applications without the user requesting them is good UI design or not. This is not an attack on the developers who do a wonderful job. I even understand the overall goal, although I think it's misguided. I simply think this change is wrong and makes Ubuntu more confusing, not less, and as someone who wants Ubuntu to be the best it can be I'd like to see it reverted. I am concerned that there is a bit of bunker mentality with the developers, which given some of the virtiol on this board is not completely unexpected, and I would encourage them to reconsider. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
With logic like John Clemens writes above I can't believe MPT is arguing some of the points that are being argued. I'm beginning to think this is just a really long lasting aprils fools joke. The points MPT is making are so fundamentally flawed it can't be anything but that. Are you really advocating coding Ubuntu to the lowest common denominator? How is aggravating a user EVER a good thing? Machines in production environments get updated when the admins say they get updated and after testing. Why should we have to put up with windows popping up constantly to nag us. How can that even be remotely defended? My first couple of posts to this thread I was certain I was missing some logic on why this change was made or something was incomplete with the functionality but the more I have learned, this popup/under issue is intended to remain once its at final form. The more I learn on this, the more upset/confused with the decision I get, I just can't even comprehend the points that MPT is trying to argue to support this. I think I've made my last post on this one. But PLEASE... devs take user feedback on this. Yes, this site is going to be biased to those who don't like something, but how many design decisions have brought this level of negative feedback on launchpad? How many design decisions/changes in the past actually appear to the user as a bug? And again... unsolicited popups/popunders can never be justified except for critical notifications where interrupting the user is unavoidable. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: mac_v: As I explained in the very text you quoted, we are not creating such security holes: that problem already exists, regardless of Update Manager. As for your food analogy, you are confusing perfect with better. We switched to Notify OSD, with the necessary Update Manager changes, even though it wasn't perfect, because it was already better than the alternative. You make a good point about critical non-security updates (e.g. fixes to graphic driver crashes) vs. security updates, and that's something I'll discuss with other Ubuntu developers as part of the AppCenter work. Perhaps we could have critical and major tiers of updates, instead of security and non-security. @Matthew Paul Thomas, 1the security holes i'm referring to is *user acceptance * to the appearance of pop-ups, if there are no pop-ups by any app then the user will be concerned when any app open a pop-up but since now that u are creating a pop-up acceptance behavior , the user will not be alarmed by a malicious pop-up. this is how non-technical users get tricked. this is really a security issue. 2the food analogy was because u had proposed options to choose the daily display of updates but this option is not available. when will that option be available? 3also, looks like the App Centre idea has been around since 2005, any ideas when that might be implemented? -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: Uwe Schilling, Thomas Nardone: As I have already explained several times, this is far from the only time programs need to open windows unprompted; and conversely, even with a browser blocking popup windows, a determined Web site author can still open popup windows or things that look like windows. Therefore, trying to distinguish real prompts from fake ones by whether they open manually or automatically is dangerously wrong. Better defence mechanisms include making Web windows more obviously non-native (with help from both the browser and the Ubuntu theme), and more informative handling of downloaded executables (Windows Vista and especially Mac OS X do a much better job of that than Ubuntu does). That was not the point I was making. The point is, that, yes, there are applications that open pop-up windows on my computer. However, none of these applications asks for the system password! Ever! If some evil guy from the internet pretended to be my friend Bob and told me hi via skype, I would soon find out because he doesn't know anything about me, but nothing would be lost, if I asked back How are you?. But now you start teaching people to give their systm password to some arbitrary pop-up windows. Do you agree that there is a difference if a pop-up window has administrator status or not? That is the difference I am pointing towards. So far, there was no higher interest in determining if something was started by the actual application or if it just pretended to be. At least, it was on immanent risk to your system. But by training people to give their system password to pop-ups, it becomes one. That is the point I want to make. Making web windows look less native would definitely help to prevent damage, but for the moment, they look pretty much alike. Thus, at least for the next half year (until karmic) the danger I described persists. And even afterwards, it does not seem obvios to me, that then everybody will be able to distinguish the windows by their style. It still seems to pose an unnecessary risk. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
Re: [Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
hurga wrote: manager window means, so nothing gained. Put the issue up for a vote, where the majority of ubuntu users can vote and don't decide over peoples head. @hurga http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/19283/ this voting has already been going on regarding this notifier at brainstorm... and mostly everyone wants to have the icon back -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
I dont think the problem is the new NotifyOSD. Personally I think the new notifyosd is great. The thing of question here is the update-notifier package. So lets have a look at that one. The two mainly discussed things are the bubbles and the icons. For the bubbles they should and have been replaced in favour of using the new notifyOSD, and they have. So fare so good, I like the notifyOSD so I like that change. The other thing were the icons. Claim is that many people ignore it. [1]. So you introduce the popunder. Maybe (many) people even like it. But what I dont understand is how that leads to the reasoning the the icons must leave? Whats wrong with keeping the icons? You have removed the bubbles in favour of notifyOSD, do the icons really hurt that much? What I would suggest: 1. Open the popunder as a default for all those that ignored the icons before. b(Already Implemented)/b 2. keep the icons (parallel to the popunder) b(needs to be reimplemented)/b 3. add a check box to the update-manager popunder that says something like: bOpen update-manager automatically when updates are available. /b and next to that one a button: bMore/b or bAdvanced/b. When the user clicks that one the Software Sources Update tab opens and you have two more options: Open update-manager automatically when updates are available. and Show update-manager icons in the pannel to indicate its status. b(needs to be implmented)/b Then you would realize both parties wishes. That would be a real choice. The people who notoriously dont update have their popunder and therefore a thing they wont ignore like the icons and second the people who know what the icons are for have their icons and can disable the popunder if they want. Plus, those that have been ignoring the icon before can still can keep ignoring it since they have the popunder. Now what do you think? Implement it for Karmic and maybe provide a backport for Jaunty or a PPA. And then we can finally close this bug, hopefully. Cheers Lanoxx [1] Personally Im not sure if the message of the notifyOSD (telling you there are updates available) and the icons would appear at the same time would be so hard to put into a relation with each other, but anyway. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
One of the big reasons why I recently 'permanently' abandoned Windows all together is because Windows frequently believes it knows better, than I do what I should focus my attention on. Popunder, in my opinion, is a move in that direction. Lack of persistent notification simply creates an opportunity to forget/miss an update when I can/want to make a choice to focus on maintenance tasks. I want the option of disabling the new behaviors and restoring the perfectly adequate Intrepid ones. A supported option, that should be clearly visible in the update manager settings. In terms of continuity of user experience and following the principle of least surprise, I think the options to select desired behaviors with the old ones being the default for upgraders should have been implemented instead of the current choice. The above is to provide the details and motivations only; I made my choice known at http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/19283/ and suggest the same for everyone. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
What I don't understand is if the idea was to eventually have another method of handling notifications for updates, as opposed to the current method, then why not wait until that other method is complete? I don't understand why one would try and partially implement it and give the user a bad experience? This seems parallel to when pulseaudio was first included and didn't work for the best supported cards and most user disabled it. Now it seems up to the quality level to be beneficial to the user and I'm glad it's included. I understand that not including it when it was would have hampered the adoption a little, but honestly, I'd rather have things that work. -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
[Bug 332945] Re: [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information
Thomas, you bring up an important point. This behaviour is nothing a user would expect, and something he usually has links to malicious software, so how to know that it is ok. However, as I have mentioned before, I think it is even more dangerous the other way round. People are trained to trust up pop-up window, and trust it so much as to enter their password. It seems so easy to me to exploit this training by putting up a website which opens a pop-up which looks just like the update-manager, but which installs some malicious software instead. And since the user is used to pop-up windows asking for his/her password, he/she will give it right away. And this is a pitfall which will not only be a danger to newbies and non-geeks, but basically to everyone who does not use a pop-up blocker for whatever reason. All these persons will always have to close the pop-up window and then open update manager manually, in order to confirm that it really is the right application which they are giving their password to. IMHO this constitutes a huge security leak, but I haven't seen anybody else commenting on it, so maybe there is a safeguard that the two of us don't see? -- [Jaunty] Update Notifier icon would provide useful status information https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/332945 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
