[Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] Messages notification

[Gary Martin]

Hi Sascha,

On 11 Dec 2010, at 09:40, Sascha Silbe <sascha-ml-reply-to-2010-4 at silbe.org> wrote:

> Excerpts from Gary Martin's message of Sat Dec 11 05:05:07 +0100 2010:
> 
>>> (and perhaps we could add a 'send
>>> a notification' submenu to the friends icons on the Frame as well).
>> 
>> I'm still thinking on that one... Chat type notifications from friends would seem like the ideal case for a consolidated, time ordered list of chat messages (not mixed in with other notification types), so you could actually have a valid conversation flow with collaborating buddies. If new messages were shown attached to the given buddy icon context, you'd be hard pressed to follow the sequence of a conversation (that UI would only really work for one on one private conversation flow).
> 
> I don't think chatting is a good use case for notifications.

Agreed, I tried to make that clear in some of my previous emails, however top right corner pulse notifications 'may' provide the way to reveal this activity without too much screen intrusion, along with (possibly) buddy badges.

> And we
> already have XMPP and the Chat activity (they even work with non-Sugar
> users up to some extent!) for that. If there's something about it that
> you don't like, please bring it up so we can fix Chat (or XMPP support
> in general) instead of bending new tools to do the same.

This is not the same as a specific Chat focused activity. Activity collaboration already provides a Chat channel for free, but it is not exposed by Sugar. I think there may have been one exception here for a board game activity that put this chat channel in a split screen of the activity. Using the frame would allow the Sugar shell to manage the chat channel for all activities, suddenly every activity automatically gains a useful collaboration feature!

> One improvement that came up in the past but never got implemented is
> overlay chat for activities [1].

Yes, this is just the kind of use I was trying to cover, perhaps using a top right corner pulse to indicate that an buddy chat message arrived, and then a right frame edge icon to reveal the actual text when the owner wants to see it (or alternatively badging a right frame edge buddy icon and adding the text message there). One complication is that each shared activity has a separate chat channel, so if you are using Paint, and a message arrives from a user in Moon, the notification needs to indicate which activity the new buddy message can be found in.

Regards,
--Gary

> Sascha
> 
> [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/images/0/0e/Overlay_chat_sketch.pdf
> -- 
> http://sascha.silbe.org/
> http://www.infra-silbe.de/