Bug 693207 - notify-send clutter up notification panel in Gnome 3
Summary: notify-send clutter up notification panel in Gnome 3
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: gnome-shell
Version: 15
Hardware: i386
OS: Linux
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Owen Taylor
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2011-04-03 14:38 UTC by Chris Bagwell
Modified: 2012-12-11 04:03 UTC (History)
15 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2011-11-04 14:32:22 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
Demonstration of how ABRT is grouping its messages. (56.70 KB, image/png)
2011-10-20 17:14 UTC, Jan Pokorný [poki]
no flags Details
Showing annoyance of notify-send (107.84 KB, image/png)
2011-11-01 13:36 UTC, Jesus M. Rodriguez
no flags Details

Description Chris Bagwell 2011-04-03 14:38:53 UTC
I have some scripts that make use of notify-send to show a message to user when work occurs.

In Gnome 2 (Fedora 14), this briefly displayed message on screen and then was gone:

notify-send subject message

In Gnome 3, this is still true but in addition it adds an icon onto notification panel (what ever its called when you put cursor in lower right corner).  These build up over time and are a pain to clear out.  You have to click on each icon and then click on message that pops up to remove icon from panel.

Is this a bug or feature?  Shouldn't notify-send be able to send-and-forget messages that require no further user interaction?

Comment 1 Matthias Clasen 2011-04-15 05:32:53 UTC
This is really a gnome-shell issue

Comment 2 Chris Bagwell 2011-04-20 01:56:18 UTC
OK, I started here because I heard there were likely lots of distro specific patches while preparing for release.

Should I submit a report on gnome bugzilla?

Comment 3 Simon Perry 2011-05-02 05:44:55 UTC
Give this a crack:

notify-send --hint=int:transient:1 Test

Comment 4 Chris Bagwell 2011-05-03 00:48:36 UTC
Yep, I verified that the --hint option in comment #3 does not keep the notification around.  I guess that means this bug can be closed.

Comment 5 Casey Dahlin 2011-05-19 18:23:23 UTC
That option doesn't work for me. The notification is still sticking around.

Comment 6 Casey Dahlin 2011-05-19 18:51:39 UTC
Never mind. Its begun to work. It remained on the first try though.

Comment 7 Jan Pokorný [poki] 2011-08-23 15:56:24 UTC
It would be nice to "remove icon from panel" by clicking it with the middle
mouse button, FWIW.

Comment 8 Jan Pokorný [poki] 2011-10-20 17:11:10 UTC
My use-case:
I am running irssi on a remote machine and have tweaked "notify.pl" [1]
plugin to run notify-send via SSH connection back to my station.  And
it literally clutters up notification panel (as the subject reads) for me.

If I make the notifications transient, I can miss some notifications I'd
rather not.  That possibility I mentioned in comment 7 would be a little
help for me in the current state (lets mark this 0a/).  Perhaps better for me
would be to set a notification timeout (0b/). Is there anything like this
already?


But inspired by how ABRT groups its events under a single icon [*], I have
a following proposal:

1/ Let's make standard (non-transient) notifications from notify-send (or
   generally via libnotify?) be grouped in the notification panel (as in
   ABRT case) according to the program (it's path, PID?) that sent
   the notification and/or add a possibility to tag the notification so
   the notifications with the same non-empty tag can be grouped in the same
   manner.


The other proposal concerns general usability of notification panel once
it got cluttered up:

2/ Let's make notification-panel *at least* mouse-scrollable.  Even better
   would be to add a behavior that the panel scrolls automatically once
   it is displayed + cursor is near its right/left edge.  Otherwise, you
   have to remove new notifications to reach the old ones (on the right).


Any thoughts on the proposals or suggestions for my use case (beside using
another notification framework)?


[1] http://irssi-libnotify.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/notify.pl
[*] will attach a screenshot for demonstration in the next comment

Comment 9 Jan Pokorný [poki] 2011-10-20 17:14:38 UTC
Created attachment 529345 [details]
Demonstration of how ABRT is grouping its messages.

Notice also that it is indicating the number of grouped messages as the
notification icon overlay.

Comment 10 Dag Odenhall 2011-10-24 20:06:24 UTC
On Fedora 16, since installing upgrades, I have this issue with Transmission. Before this recent upgrade, Transmission notifications would queue up in the tray icon for Transmission itself, with a notification count hint as a bubble on the tray icon. Since the upgrade, I get a new Transmission icon in the tray for each notification, labeled "notify-send".

Comment 11 Jesus M. Rodriguez 2011-11-01 13:29:34 UTC
Since I can't change the caller of notify-send, I resorted to creating a bash wrapper named notify-send that calls my-notify-send (the binary) with the args in comment #3. It is highly annoying to have these bubbles stack up and no way to clear them all.

Comment 12 Jesus M. Rodriguez 2011-11-01 13:36:58 UTC
Created attachment 531131 [details]
Showing annoyance of notify-send

Comment 13 Jan Pokorný [poki] 2011-11-04 13:21:30 UTC
Re comment 8:

My bad, 0b/ (notification timeout) must be already present for a long time:
---
$ notify-send --help
[...]
Application Options:
[...]
-t, --expire-time=TIME
    Specifies the timeout in milliseconds at which to expire
    the notification.
[...]
---
I think I had knew about that but forgot/not rechecked it by the time
of writing the comment.


However, 0a/, 1/ and especially 2/ remain opened and IMHO are worth
considering.

Comment 14 Matthias Clasen 2011-11-04 14:32:22 UTC
The concrete issue was found fixed in Comment #4.

I don't think there is anything concrete left to do here. 


Discussion of the tradeoffs of the gnome-shell message tray design should really happen upstream with the GNOME designers.

Comment 15 goodbye300 2012-12-11 04:03:29 UTC
notify-send --hint=int:transient:1 Test

I tested it. As soon as the notification disappears, it is stored. However I am using Cinnamon, and not Gnome3. It shouldn't make a difference since I am calling notify-send with --hint=int:transient:1

http://expectusafterlun.ch/screenshot.png


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