From kde-core-devel Tue Sep 22 23:49:37 2009 From: David Nolden Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:49:37 +0000 To: kde-core-devel Subject: Re: [PATCH] Turn Powerdevil suspend notification into a dialog Message-Id: <200909230149.37977.zwabel () googlemail ! com> X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-core-devel&m=125366334617227 Am Mittwoch 23 September 2009 01:25:22 schrieb Sebastian Kügler: > You don't want to disturb the user, because you tell him "save your stuff > NOW". The last thing you want in that situation is a dialog smacked onto > the center of the screen. Actually, given disk-caches etc. on linux, saving his stuff won't necessarily save the users data anyway (in case of power-loss). That means that the main sense of that notification is asking the user as fast as possible, and without a chance of missing it, whether the computer should _really_ be suspended (or shut down). If the notification is ignored by the user or he doesn't notice it, then he will be disturbed 20 seconds later in a much more fatal way. So this notification actually _must_ disturb the user, to possibly prevent a more significant disturbance. For sure, the user feels less confused when he's disturbed by a dialog, then when he's disturbed by the shutdown of his computer. > That needs to be fixed, regardless. Introducing another way of notifying > the user of important system events is not a solution but creates > inconsistency and makes this problem even worse. > > I'm not saying that this piece of user interaction (critical suspend) can't > be improved. Replacing it with a dialog is just the wrong direction. > I agree that it would probably be better if this was handled somehow consistently. But the result would be something similar to a modal dialog anyway, as it _must_ disturb the users workflow. Maybe a very prominent colored, flashing and non-disappearing popup somewhere near the panel would work as well. But dialogs have their advantages too: Everyone notices them, and everyone knows how to use them.