GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 653538
Evolution's notification area takes too much space
Last modified: 2013-12-15 19:19:00 UTC
Created attachment 190826 [details] Screencapture showing notifications taking too much space Running Evolution 3.0.2 on a laptop with a screen resolution of 1680x1050, window maximised. On the top right area of the screen, Evolution displays notifications such as connection problems (red background), offline mode (yellow background), etc. The problem is that when using Evolution with a non-stable internet connection (like micro disconnections that are not perceived by the user while browsing the web, for example), a constant part of the screen is taken by Evolution displaying notifications (see screencapture) that remain even after a disconnection event. Evolution should use a different approach in order to (not?) tell the user that some non-significant events happen, and specially using so much screen real estate.
Perhaps we should go back to tons of little pop-up windows like in the olden days...
(In reply to comment #1) > Perhaps we should go back to tons of little pop-up windows like in the olden > days... There is a lot of unused space at the bottom of the window, in the status bar. It could be used for transient notifications that don't require user acknowledgement. Currently, every 2 minutes Evolution comes up with the disconnection notifications. It is very annoying.
Been there, done that too. It didn't work out.
Why exactly? I agree we should not go back to the popups, bug what was so bad about using the status bar? gnome-shell displays notifications at the bottom (e.g. "Your laptop battery is broken or very old"), so having these annoying huge messages at the top of the window is very confusing and inconsistent, both the colors and the placement.
The problem that I have with those notifications, in my situation, is: - they are permanent - they are huge and flashy - they break the layout of the panels - they don't provide me information that I need - they cannot be prevented via configuration - they don't disappear when the problem self-resolve - they waste some screen space that can be used to display something usefull - they are cumulative: I have to click a dozen of time on the « Fermer » buttons because they are displayed on top of each other (many disconnection and many ping timeouts)
(In reply to comment #5) > - they are cumulative: I have to click a dozen of time on the « Fermer » > buttons because they are displayed on top of each other (many disconnection and > many ping timeouts) Confirmed. This is basically like the tons of little popups Matthew mentioned, so the status bar was definitely better.
Created attachment 194169 [details] Screenshot of two stacked notifications on 1024 x 521px Here is a screenshot of two stacked notifications in a 1024 x 521 px window, so this is not much different from the 1024 x 600 px resolution that you normally have on a netbook. As you can see you hardly see.. anything.
Noticing those gaps in error messages, this is bug #657621.
Confirming this problem is still there in Evolution 3.2.2. Also confirming that the size of panels get mangled when such notifications appears:the view is pushed down, and when the user dismisses the notification, the separator bar between the message list and the message preview is not restored to its original place. Noticed too that the notifications disappears after some time, is it configurable?
The oversize had been fixed as [1]. The issue with message panel resizing instead of preview panel when notification hides is still opened. With respect of configurability of the timeout for warnings, no, it is not configurable. [1] http://git.gnome.org/browse/evolution/commit/?id=b561899417254
*** Bug 666215 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Alerts are the proper height now. Preview pane behavior is a separate issue. Closing as FIXED.