Unity urgent animation needs an adjustable time length.

[JaSauders]

Ubuntu 14.04, fully up to date, Unity Version: 7.2.0+14.04.20140416-0ubuntu1

The Unity launcher in my setup is not hidden. It is always visible.

The current behavior of the urgent animation goes like this:

1) An application needs attention (such as an instant message through Empathy or Skype)
2) Icon wiggles for about one second
3) Once the wiggle is over, the icon remains highlighted

The problem is with step 2. The icon never reinitializes any sort of motion to catch the user's eye. People are busy. People are frequently multitasking. In a lot of cases, people are using multiple monitors or very widescreen monitors and their field of vision is in an entirely different place altogether. There really should be some sort of repeated motion that takes place to grab the users attention, thereby signifying that an application needs attention.

A few possible solutions would be:

A) Let the icon wiggle indefinitely until the user clicks on it. This is a bit obnoxious, because you have to consider the situations where a user might notice it, but might be too deep in a specific project to address it right away. This would stand as a potential distraction and/or annoyance, though it *would* eliminate the chances of the notification going missed.

B) To allow the user to adjust the time frame in which the wiggle animation takes place. That way instead of one second, perhaps the user might want it to last 10 seconds, or 30 seconds, etc. There are times where I am engaging in an active conversation but switching to another application frequently. At times, I miss a message altogether despite the fact I'm looking at the screen. This is entirely due to the short time frame in which the urgent animation is moving. The length of time in which it moves is, more times than not, simply not long enough to be noticed. If the one second span could be adjusted, and say I have it set to 5 seconds, or 10 seconds, surely I would notice it.

C) The most optimum solution in my opinion is to make the urgent animation continually come up over a specified span of time. Example, I receive a notification from Empathy, but I miss it. It wiggles and shortly thereafter stops wiggling, thereby just sitting idle but with the icon highlighted. A short time later, perhaps 30 seconds later, it wiggles again, and continues onward in 30 second intervals indefinitely until the user gives attention to the application requesting it.

Option C would circumvent a potential "annoyance" factor of option A, and it would work around the fact that option B) would require another thing to change in the settings menu. All in all, there *really* should be a way for a user to more easily see that an application needs attention. A simple one second wiggle is not enough. A background highlight is not enough as it does not move to be noticed. You only notice a background highlight if you specifically look at the icon, whereas a motion-based notification (wiggle, etc) actually 'grabs' your attention to be noticed.

Thank you for your time, consideration, and hard work. If I can be of any further assistance please let me know. Thank you again!

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: unity 7.2.0+14.04.20140423-0ubuntu1.2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-24.47-generic 3.13.9
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-24-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Wed May 14 15:28:24 2014
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-04-04 (40 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Daily amd64 (20140330)
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Mateusz Stachowski (stachowski-mateusz)]

If I remember correctly the Launcher already uses option C) when in auto-hide mode so just make it work the same when it is always visible.

[JaSauders (jasauders)]

Just tested the behavior with the launcher on auto hide. It looks like the icon semi pops up (about 50% of it) from the side of the screen with a wiggle, then disappears again. It continually comes up every 60 seconds after that UNTIL you reveal the launcher. When you reveal the launcher, it wiggles and stays highlighted. If you ignore it and go back about your business, the launcher hides again and the icon never does the reveal/wiggle again. Each time you reveal it, the ignored application icon is still highlighted to signify it needs attention.

Even this I don't consider to be perfect. This is just my 2c here, but here's what I consider to be a perfect Unity world in regard to alerting users of applications that need attention.

Auto Hide Mode: It's 99% there, but I believe the icon should still wiggle each time the launcher is revealed. Given that the highlighted backgrounds are hardly an obvious way to identify that an application needs attention, some sort of motion based animation is perfect. I also don't feel as though 60 seconds makes the most sense. 30 is more applicable, but this is a matter of opinion. As such, every 30 seconds, it reveals itself + wiggles, but then each time the launcher is revealed, the icon wiggles again. As I said, the highlighted backgrounds just aren't that great to use alone. They either need to be made far more obvious or else incorporate some sort of motion based animation to assist.

Non Auto Hide Mode: Option C as listed above.

Thanks for your time!

[JaSauders (jasauders)]

Any update on this, or perhaps some insight from devs about the idea? I am seeing a substantial number of users on search results indicating that they've been wanting something like this for a long time. The current setup just leaves the door open far too wide for applications needing attention to go missed.

[Eduards Bezverhijs (mjasnik)]

I agree with OP, I have a lot of applications opened at the same time, launcher size is set to 36 because they don't fit in size 48. At least at size 36 highlight is not noticeable enough and I miss notifications most of the time.
Also it's quite common that I don't see wiggle because I'm looking away from computer like watching birds fly or talking to colleagues or just concentrating on something else where my eyes are not near the launcher.
I would say that every 10 - 15 seconds would be good to me, but please don't make it hard coded, leave it up to the user to decide, sane defaults can stay like they are now - once.
Thanks.

[JaSauders (jasauders)]

Nothing like having a message waiting for 2 hours because I missed the sound and it did not re-wiggle to catch my attention.

This... this is needed. It's a must-have feature. Every other OS has something like this in place, even some other desktop environments.

[josh (o-josh)]

This actually is a massive issue at work for me. I recently switched from Windows to Ubuntu and my colleagues now regularly complain about me not answering their Jabber requests.

If anyone knows of a workaround for Psi (as long as this is not fixed), i would be more than happy to be informed.

[Mike Putnam (mikeputnam)]

I too would like to be able to adjust the "urgent_animation" duration.

Personally I would prefer it to stay animating until it received focus.

[Jonathan Platt (plattitude)]

I also would like to register support for this improvement. My preference would also be for it to remain animated (whether shaking/wiggling, or highlighted in a contrasting color) until focus is given.

[Martín Ferrari (mferrari)]

    Since the Launcher is not usable for me for the same reasons already stated (I use Ubuntu for work and this causes me a lot of trouble), I've downloaded the sources for Unity (I'm on Ubuntu 17.04) and modified the Launcher, so it will wiggle urgent icons every 10 seconds, whether the Launcher is hidden or not. Ideally, this interval should be configurable, but I haven't found yet how to read the config info.
    I would like to contribute this code if someone is interested, but I don't know how.

    For me, ideally the wiggle should last a bit longer, and the icon should reveal completely when the Launcher is hidden, but that change would be a bit more complicated, I assume (haven't really looked too much into it).