[PATCH notification] spec: Add badge-number hint

[Bastien Nocera]

As discussed during the Wayland meeting at FOSDEM 2015.
---
docs/notification-spec.xml | 17 +++++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/docs/notification-spec.xml b/docs/notification-spec.xml
index fa1da0b..3bc0292 100644
--- a/docs/notification-spec.xml
+++ b/docs/notification-spec.xml
@@ -3,8 +3,8 @@
<article id="index">
<articleinfo>
<title>Desktop Notifications Specification</title>
- <releaseinfo>Version 1.2</releaseinfo>
- <date>28 October 2010</date>
+ <releaseinfo>Version 1.3</releaseinfo>
+ <date>16 February 2015</date>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Mike</firstname>
@@ -674,6 +674,19 @@ <entry>&gt;= 1.2</entry>
</row>
<row>
+ <entry><literal>"badge-number"</literal></entry>
+ <entry>INT32</entry>
+ <entry>
+ When set, a server can use it to show the number attached to
+ the notification on top of the application icon referenced by the
+ "desktop-entry" hint.
+ Note that servers can choose not to show the number, either because
+ they do not implement the capability, or in response to user
+ configuration to suppress its display.
+ </entry>
+ <entry>&gt;= 1.3</entry>
+ </row>
+ <row>
<entry><literal>"category"</literal></entry>
<entry>STRING</entry>
<entry>

[Jasper St. Pierre]

Why and how? Note that not giving applications the badge number was an
explicit design decision Jon, Cosimo and I made when we first introduced
notifications.

Post by Bastien Nocera
As discussed during the Wayland meeting at FOSDEM 2015.
---
docs/notification-spec.xml | 17 +++++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/docs/notification-spec.xml b/docs/notification-spec.xml
index fa1da0b..3bc0292 100644
--- a/docs/notification-spec.xml
+++ b/docs/notification-spec.xml
@@ -3,8 +3,8 @@
<article id="index">
<articleinfo>
<title>Desktop Notifications Specification</title>
- <releaseinfo>Version 1.2</releaseinfo>
- <date>28 October 2010</date>
+ <releaseinfo>Version 1.3</releaseinfo>
+ <date>16 February 2015</date>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Mike</firstname>
</row>
<row>
+ <entry><literal>"badge-number"</literal></entry>
+ <entry>INT32</entry>
+ <entry>
+ When set, a server can use it to show the number attached to
+ the notification on top of the application icon referenced by the
+ "desktop-entry" hint.
+ Note that servers can choose not to show the number, either because
+ they do not implement the capability, or in response to user
+ configuration to suppress its display.
+ </entry>
+ </row>
+ <row>
<entry><literal>"category"</literal></entry>
<entry>STRING</entry>
<entry>
_______________________________________________
xdg mailing list
http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg

[Bastien Nocera]

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
Why and how?

How what?

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
Note that not giving applications the badge number was an explicit
design decision Jon, Cosimo and I made when we first introduced
notifications.

I'd like some explanations as to why this decision was made though. This
is useful for a number of applications, and would be configurable
through the "Notifications" panel in GNOME (which we didn't have when
this design decision was taken I guess).

The server can also choose not to implement it (or cannot).

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
As discussed during the Wayland meeting at FOSDEM 2015.
---
docs/notification-spec.xml | 17 +++++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/docs/notification-spec.xml
b/docs/notification-spec.xml
index fa1da0b..3bc0292 100644
--- a/docs/notification-spec.xml
+++ b/docs/notification-spec.xml
@@ -3,8 +3,8 @@
<article id="index">
<articleinfo>
<title>Desktop Notifications Specification</title>
- <releaseinfo>Version 1.2</releaseinfo>
- <date>28 October 2010</date>
+ <releaseinfo>Version 1.3</releaseinfo>
+ <date>16 February 2015</date>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Mike</firstname>
</row>
<row>
+ <entry><literal>"badge-number"</literal></entry>
+ <entry>INT32</entry>
+ <entry>
+ When set, a server can use it to show the number attached to
+ the notification on top of the application icon referenced by the
+ "desktop-entry" hint.
+ Note that servers can choose not to show the number,
either because
+ they do not implement the capability, or in response to user
+ configuration to suppress its display.
+ </entry>
+ </row>
+ <row>
<entry><literal>"category"</literal></entry>
<entry>STRING</entry>
<entry>
_______________________________________________
xdg mailing list
http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
--
Jasper

[Jasper St. Pierre]

Jon had multiple reasons:

1. The main use for a counter like is "Unread Emails", a number that's
particularly high for Jon that he didn't think it would be too useful.
Notifications should be about the

2. It's hard to figure out what the number even means sometimes, or how to
clear it. He showed me his iPhone which had some app which had a "2" badge,
and there was seemingly no explanation for it. So we decided that we would
always making it the number of unread notifications, and keep the UI for
clearing that badge consistent.

3. It got stuck. Again, another app on his iPhone always listed that he had
1 unread message, when the app itself had nothing. It was definitely the
number of unread messages, since it went up and down when he got new
messages, but, again, there's a "1" that he could never clear because of an
application bug.

Then, how do we implement this with the new notifications design in GNOME?
I don't see a place for a badge in
https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/Notifications/Redux

Post by Bastien Nocera

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
Why and how?

How what?

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
Note that not giving applications the badge number was an explicit
design decision Jon, Cosimo and I made when we first introduced
notifications.

I'd like some explanations as to why this decision was made though. This
is useful for a number of applications, and would be configurable
through the "Notifications" panel in GNOME (which we didn't have when
this design decision was taken I guess).
The server can also choose not to implement it (or cannot).

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
As discussed during the Wayland meeting at FOSDEM 2015.
---
docs/notification-spec.xml | 17 +++++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/docs/notification-spec.xml
b/docs/notification-spec.xml
index fa1da0b..3bc0292 100644
--- a/docs/notification-spec.xml
+++ b/docs/notification-spec.xml
@@ -3,8 +3,8 @@
<article id="index">
<articleinfo>
<title>Desktop Notifications Specification</title>
- <releaseinfo>Version 1.2</releaseinfo>
- <date>28 October 2010</date>
+ <releaseinfo>Version 1.3</releaseinfo>
+ <date>16 February 2015</date>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Mike</firstname>
</row>
<row>
+ <entry><literal>"badge-number"</literal></entry>
+ <entry>INT32</entry>
+ <entry>
+ When set, a server can use it to show the number attached to
+ the notification on top of the application icon
referenced by the
+ "desktop-entry" hint.
+ Note that servers can choose not to show the number,
either because
+ they do not implement the capability, or in response to user
+ configuration to suppress its display.
+ </entry>
+ </row>
+ <row>
<entry><literal>"category"</literal></entry>
<entry>STRING</entry>
<entry>
_______________________________________________
xdg mailing list
http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
--
Jasper

[Bastien Nocera]

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
1. The main use for a counter like is "Unread Emails", a number that's
particularly high for Jon that he didn't think it would be too useful.
Notifications should be about the

About the? It's also very low for a number of people. I can also be
there to notify about the number of new podcasts episodes to read, the
number of unread articles in my offline reader app, the number of unread
messages in my chat application, or even the fact that there is an
update available.

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
2. It's hard to figure out what the number even means sometimes, or
how to clear it. He showed me his iPhone which had some app which had
a "2" badge, and there was seemingly no explanation for it. So we
decided that we would always making it the number of unread
notifications, and keep the UI for clearing that badge consistent.

It can be turned off in the Notifications settings on iOS, and so will
we be able to turn it off in GNOME.

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
3. It got stuck. Again, another app on his iPhone always listed that
he had 1 unread message, when the app itself had nothing. It was
definitely the number of unread messages, since it went up and down
when he got new messages, but, again, there's a "1" that he could
never clear because of an application bug.

Apps have bugs. Disable the badge, or remove the app then.

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
Then, how do we implement this with the new notifications design in
GNOME? I don't see a place for a badge in
https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/Notifications/Redux

I would show it on the app's icon, not in a separate notification.

Look for badge in this to see the equivalent iOS notification API:
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/Chapters/IPhoneOSClientImp.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40008194-CH103-SW13

Look for "badge".

Post by Jasper St. Pierre

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
Why and how?

How what?

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
Note that not giving applications the badge number was an

explicit

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
design decision Jon, Cosimo and I made when we first

introduced

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
notifications.

I'd like some explanations as to why this decision was made though. This
is useful for a number of applications, and would be
configurable
through the "Notifications" panel in GNOME (which we didn't have when
this design decision was taken I guess).
The server can also choose not to implement it (or cannot).

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 9:21 AM, Bastien Nocera
As discussed during the Wayland meeting at FOSDEM

2015.

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
---
docs/notification-spec.xml | 17 +++++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/docs/notification-spec.xml
b/docs/notification-spec.xml
index fa1da0b..3bc0292 100644
--- a/docs/notification-spec.xml
+++ b/docs/notification-spec.xml
@@ -3,8 +3,8 @@
<article id="index">
<articleinfo>
<title>Desktop Notifications

Specification</title>

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
- <releaseinfo>Version 1.2</releaseinfo>
- <date>28 October 2010</date>
+ <releaseinfo>Version 1.3</releaseinfo>
+ <date>16 February 2015</date>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Mike</firstname>
</row>
<row>
+

<entry><literal>"badge-number"</literal></entry>

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
+ <entry>INT32</entry>
+ <entry>
+ When set, a server can use it to show the

number

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
attached to
+ the notification on top of the application

icon

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
referenced by the
+ "desktop-entry" hint.
+ Note that servers can choose not to show

the number,

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
either because
+ they do not implement the capability, or in

response

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
to user
+ configuration to suppress its display.
+ </entry>
+ </row>
+ <row>
<entry><literal>"category"</literal></entry>
<entry>STRING</entry>
<entry>
_______________________________________________
xdg mailing list
http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
--
Jasper

--
Jasper

[Jasper St. Pierre]

Post by Bastien Nocera

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
1. The main use for a counter like is "Unread Emails", a number that's
particularly high for Jon that he didn't think it would be too useful.
Notifications should be about the

About the?

Sorry. "Notifications should be about the now."

Post by Bastien Nocera
It's also very low for a number of people.

I've glanced at enough people's Gmails over the shoulder to know that's not
the case.

Post by Bastien Nocera
I can also be
there to notify about the number of new podcasts episodes to read, the
number of unread articles in my offline reader app, the number of unread
messages in my chat application, or even the fact that there is an
update available.

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
2. It's hard to figure out what the number even means sometimes, or
how to clear it. He showed me his iPhone which had some app which had
a "2" badge, and there was seemingly no explanation for it. So we
decided that we would always making it the number of unread
notifications, and keep the UI for clearing that badge consistent.

It can be turned off in the Notifications settings on iOS, and so will
we be able to turn it off in GNOME.

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
3. It got stuck. Again, another app on his iPhone always listed that
he had 1 unread message, when the app itself had nothing. It was
definitely the number of unread messages, since it went up and down
when he got new messages, but, again, there's a "1" that he could
never clear because of an application bug.

Apps have bugs. Disable the badge, or remove the app then.

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
Then, how do we implement this with the new notifications design in
GNOME? I don't see a place for a badge in
https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/OS/Notifications/Redux

I would show it on the app's icon, not in a separate notification.

Then why is it part of the notification? If I have broadcast a new
notification with a new badge-number hint, does that replace the old one?
What if I remove the notification with that hint? What do we display then?

Note that we replaced the FDO Notifications spec with a semi-private API
when we introduced GNotification. Ryan was planning to standardize that
API, so you should talk to him about it.

Post by Bastien Nocera
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/Chapters/IPhoneOSClientImp.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40008194-CH103-SW13
Look for "badge".

Post by Jasper St. Pierre

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
Why and how?

How what?

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
Note that not giving applications the badge number was an

explicit

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
design decision Jon, Cosimo and I made when we first

introduced

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
notifications.

I'd like some explanations as to why this decision was made
though. This
is useful for a number of applications, and would be
configurable
through the "Notifications" panel in GNOME (which we didn't have when
this design decision was taken I guess).
The server can also choose not to implement it (or cannot).

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 9:21 AM, Bastien Nocera
As discussed during the Wayland meeting at FOSDEM

2015.

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
---
docs/notification-spec.xml | 17 +++++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/docs/notification-spec.xml
b/docs/notification-spec.xml
index fa1da0b..3bc0292 100644
--- a/docs/notification-spec.xml
+++ b/docs/notification-spec.xml
@@ -3,8 +3,8 @@
<article id="index">
<articleinfo>
<title>Desktop Notifications

Specification</title>

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
- <releaseinfo>Version 1.2</releaseinfo>
- <date>28 October 2010</date>
+ <releaseinfo>Version 1.3</releaseinfo>
+ <date>16 February 2015</date>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Mike</firstname>
</row>
<row>
+

<entry><literal>"badge-number"</literal></entry>

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
+ <entry>INT32</entry>
+ <entry>
+ When set, a server can use it to show the

number

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
attached to
+ the notification on top of the application

icon

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
referenced by the
+ "desktop-entry" hint.
+ Note that servers can choose not to show

the number,

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
either because
+ they do not implement the capability, or in

response

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
to user
+ configuration to suppress its display.
+ </entry>
+ </row>
+ <row>
<entry><literal>"category"</literal></entry>
<entry>STRING</entry>
<entry>
_______________________________________________
xdg mailing list
http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg
--
Jasper

--
Jasper

[Bastien Nocera]

Post by Jasper St. Pierre

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
1. The main use for a counter like is "Unread Emails", a

number that's

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
particularly high for Jon that he didn't think it would be

too useful.

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
Notifications should be about the

About the?
Sorry. "Notifications should be about the now."

<snip>

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
Then why is it part of the notification? If I have broadcast a new
notification with a new badge-number hint, does that replace the old
one? What if I remove the notification with that hint? What do we
display then?

You're confusing the protocol with the UI. If I underspec'ed the
changes, I'm more than happy to talk about that, rather than having to
justify why it's needed.

Post by Jasper St. Pierre
Note that we replaced the FDO Notifications spec with a semi-private
API when we introduced GNotification. Ryan was planning to standardize
that API, so you should talk to him about it.

Until that's done, I consider it an implementation detail.

Cheers

[Thomas Kluyver]

Post by Bastien Nocera
About the? It's also very low for a number of people. I can also be
there to notify about the number of new podcasts episodes to read, the
number of unread articles in my offline reader app, the number of unread
messages in my chat application,

In all of these cases (email, podcasts, RSS reader, chat), I have used
applications which internally show some kind of unread/unseen count, and in
all four categories, the number quickly gets higher than I have any
intention of doing anything about other than clicking 'Mark all read'. I
have a suspicion that this is partly what 'killed' RSS (in popular use) -
feed readers were designed as if people would read every item, and then it
felt like a chore to keep up with it.

I'm not saying there are no possible use cases for a numeric badge, but my
experience is that most of the obvious use cases for it are not great UI
design.

Thomas

[Jerome Leclanche]

Aren't we talking protocol here? UI can be argued elsewhere, to be honest...

Anyway, protocol-wise, why isn't this the job of the notification
client? (Mobile notification clients do it that way fwiw)

J. Leclanche

Post by Thomas Kluyver

Post by Bastien Nocera
About the? It's also very low for a number of people. I can also be
there to notify about the number of new podcasts episodes to read, the
number of unread articles in my offline reader app, the number of unread
messages in my chat application,

In all of these cases (email, podcasts, RSS reader, chat), I have used
applications which internally show some kind of unread/unseen count, and in
all four categories, the number quickly gets higher than I have any
intention of doing anything about other than clicking 'Mark all read'. I
have a suspicion that this is partly what 'killed' RSS (in popular use) -
feed readers were designed as if people would read every item, and then it
felt like a chore to keep up with it.
I'm not saying there are no possible use cases for a numeric badge, but my
experience is that most of the obvious use cases for it are not great UI
design.
Thomas
_______________________________________________
xdg mailing list
http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg

[Ted Gould]

I think there should actually be two values "show-badge-number" and
"badge-number". As it is a possible usage that someone would want to
show it as zero, but also that you'd want to send notifications that
didn't effect the badge number directly. I think that the lifecycle
should be mentioned in the doc, I don't think every notification that
goes by should have to have the number in it. It should only adjust when
requested.

I'm a little worried about using the notifications spec for this because
there's no way to get the current state of the count. So if an
application had a helper that wanted to "add one" to the count there's
no way to implement that. It might make more sense to move the Dock
Manager spec into something FD.o as there are a few docks that implement
versions of it already:

http://wiki.go-docky.com/index.php?title=Writing_Helpers#DockManager_DBus_Interface_Specification

Not sure how many of them are still being developed though.

Ted

Post by Bastien Nocera
As discussed during the Wayland meeting at FOSDEM 2015.
---
docs/notification-spec.xml | 17 +++++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/docs/notification-spec.xml b/docs/notification-spec.xml
index fa1da0b..3bc0292 100644
--- a/docs/notification-spec.xml
+++ b/docs/notification-spec.xml
@@ -3,8 +3,8 @@
<article id="index">
<articleinfo>
<title>Desktop Notifications Specification</title>
- <releaseinfo>Version 1.2</releaseinfo>
- <date>28 October 2010</date>
+ <releaseinfo>Version 1.3</releaseinfo>
+ <date>16 February 2015</date>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Mike</firstname>
</row>
<row>
+ <entry><literal>"badge-number"</literal></entry>
+ <entry>INT32</entry>
+ <entry>
+ When set, a server can use it to show the number attached to
+ the notification on top of the application icon referenced by the
+ "desktop-entry" hint.
+ Note that servers can choose not to show the number, either because
+ they do not implement the capability, or in response to user
+ configuration to suppress its display.
+ </entry>
+ </row>
+ <row>
<entry><literal>"category"</literal></entry>
<entry>STRING</entry>
<entry>
_______________________________________________
xdg mailing list
http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xdg