[Wylug-help] Evolution Alerts

[Smylers]

David Whiteley writes:

> I am using evolution, and its calendar.

Disclaimer: I've never used Evolution, so I don't know what I'm talking
about.

> When I set the alarm for an event, thge resultant screen popup often
> seems to be hidden behind other windows on the screen.  It there any
> way to configure it so that these alerts are "always on top"?

Which desktop environment and window manager are you using?

Applications can indicate that a particular window is deemed
'important', and it's up to the window manager to decide how to indicate
this to the user.  Gnome's current behaviour is indicate importantness
by flashing the windows entry in the window list.  Personally I
preferred its previous behaviour (long rant below).

However, you may be able to use Devil's Pie and tell it to look out for
Evolution alarm windows and make them be always on top (which is not
quite the same thing as appearing raised (because you can't even lower
them manually), but may do for alarms).  You'll probably also want to
make alarms be pinned to all workspaces -- it's no good an alarm popping
up on one workspaces if you're looking at a different one.

Devil's Pie is here:

  http://www.burtonini.com/blog/computers/devilspie

I'm using version 0.10, as found in the latest Ubuntu release.  For what
it's worth the XML below is what I use to pin Gaim windows to all
workspaces ... but versions 0.13 onwards has a completely different
configuration syntax (S-expressions turned out to be more useful than
XML -- who'd've thought?), so this may be of no use at all:

  <?xml version="1.0"?>
  <!DOCTYPE devilspie SYSTEM "devilspie.dtd">
  <devilspie>

    <flurb name="Gaim windows on all workspaces">
      <matchers>
        <matcher name="DevilsPieMatcherWindowName">
          <property name="application_name" value="gaim"/>
        </matcher>
      </matchers>
      <actions>
        <action name="DevilsPieActionSetWorkspace">
          <property name="pinned" value="TRUE"/>
        </action>
      </actions>
    </flurb>

  </devilspie>

Smylers


Here's that rant against Gnome's decision on how to draw attention to
'important' windows:

Until fairly recently Gaim instant messenger windows would pop up on top
of other things, but this behaviour was changed -- not by Gaim, but by
Gnome.  It seems that applications can set some sort of 'this window is
important flag', and it's up to the window manager how to indicate that
to the user.

A few months ago I browsed the Gnome Bugzilla and mailing list entries
discussing this.  Users, rightly, objected to IM windows popping up and
stealing the focus, since if you're in the middle of typing something in
another window you suddenly find your text going into an instant
message.

But Gnome's usability gurus decided that if an 'important' window isn't
going to grab the focus then it shouldn't be raised either, because it'd
be confusing to people to have a non-focussed window (partially)
covering the focussed window -- you wouldn't be able to see what you're
typing anymore.

I can see why some people would find that irritating.  But one of the
reasons I change Gnome's default 'click to focus' to 'focus follows
mouse' is so that I _can_ focus windows without raising them; my tpying
is good enough taht I don't need to look at waht I'm doing.

The alternative window list flashing behaviour is only any use if you
have a window list visible.  The Gnome usability gurus respond by saying
that removing your window list isn't sensible and they don't support
such stupid configurations.

They make no mention of people who choose to use panels' 'autohide'
option, so that panels slide out of the way to an edge of the screen --
very handy on laptops with small screens.  This in practice means you
only see the window list when you're looking for it -- and surely that's
a supported setting, otherwise they wouldn't offer it?

Further, even when the window list is visible I can the flashing _more_
intrusive and irritating than a pop-up window.  A window only pops up
once, and often gets covered again with no extra effort on my part: I'm
just Alt+Tab-ing to another window and the pop-up gets covered as a
side-effect.

But if a window list item starts flashing it keeps on flashing until I
give it some attention -- and I find it harder to concentrate on getting
the network connection back (or whatever) if there's something flashing
in the corner of the screen, trying to grab my attention to tell me to
look at the window saying that it's lost the network.  So I find myself
going out of my way to focus windows I'm not interested in (or have
already read, cos they happened to be on top anyway) just to stop the
flashing!

While in general I agree with the Gnome (and Firefox) viewpoint that
excessive configuration options should be avoided in favour of behaviour
that is good by default, I'd rather have something with a few too many
options (which I can ignore) than be missing something I really want --
and failing to spot "instant" messages from my boss popping up on screen
is definitely a problem that needs solving, not just a whim.

Perhaps it's a good time to give KDE another whirl ...