Regression vs notification-daemon: Notify-osd doesn't deal with a large number of notifications well
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
notify-osd (Ubuntu) |
Invalid
|
Undecided
|
Mirco Müller |
Bug Description
Binary package hint: notify-osd
I use mail-notification to check mail. It (and potentially other notification clients) sends notifications whenever something new has happened.
When first logging in to the desktop, this can mean many notifications. Under notify-osd, each of these takes 7 seconds to display and time-out before the next one is displayed. If there's 10 new messages in the mailboxes it checks, this means waiting 70 seconds before any additional notifications can be displayed. If there's 50 new messages.... well you can see how this would be somewhat awkward.
Notification-daemon took the approach of displaying all messages in a stack, and then clearing them all individually.
In order for notify-osd to handle this case well, there are a few options:
- re-enable the ability to manually dismiss notification pop-ups somehow
- implement a stack-based display. Display as many as you can on the entire screen (which should be safe, considering that when you mouse-over the notifications, you can still use the screen realestate underneath it). You could then do a quick marquee/scrolling style view of the entire set.
- Other suggestions?
For that exact case we have the indicator-applet, which has the capability to do globbing such information, in order to condense these repetitive messages/ notifications. Not only does it do that, but it also provides a centralized spot for all kinds of incoming communication (email, IM, IRC). We provide plugins that hook up into indicator-applet for evolution, pidgin and many others. Regarding mail-notification there's also a dedicated section on the wiki https:/ /wiki.ubuntu. com/NotifyOSD# Mail%20Notifica tion, with some hints on how to set it up to better work with notify-osd. Right now mail-notification, since it's in universe and not in main, has not been patched yet to integrate more seamlessly with the new notification spec.