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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: Pop-up alert dialogs.
From:       "Steven D'Aprano" <dippy () mikka ! net ! au>
Date:       2001-11-22 9:11:57
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David Golden wrote:
> 
> On Tuesday 20 November 2001 14:40, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> 
> > Good point. It would be nice if the messaging component logged the
> > alerts, so you could go back to a previous message. "Read previous
> > alert" and "Read alert logs" commands perhaps?
> 
> So,  at what point do you just start mailing the alerts, and running a biff
> clone.  :-)
> 
> Seriously, why reinvent the wheel - the user's local mailbox has been a
> target for system messages since time immemorial.  It'd be nice to just
> nominate a mail folder for copies of critical alerts to go to...  If you just
> mailed copies of all alerts with a subject line "KDE CRITICAL ALERT LOG",
> then users could even filter it into a subdirectory of their local mail.

You miss the point entirely. We're not talking about system messages,
we're talking about application level alerts. This is the scenario:

(1) Application wants to display a message to the user. If it is a
critical message ("Your computer is on fire, please estinguish it as
soon as possible") then is displays a dialog box immediately. But if its
not a critical message, the messanging component blinks quietly off to
the side, waiting for you to go to it and ask for the messages.

(2) If the user accidently dismisses the dialog before reading the
message, or before taking notes, or calling the help desk, its no big
deal, because the messaging component logs all the messages. The user,
or the help desk operator, simply needs to click a button "Read previous
alert" etc.

(3) And because this is KDE, its (hopefully) very customisable. Maybe
you're waiting for KIllustrator to finish a really really long render,
and you want to be notified *immediately* if there's a problem. OK, you
can do it. But if KMail chokes on sending an email message, you don't
care, you'll read that later.

Or visa versa.




-- 
Steven D'Aprano

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