A debian user asked if it would be possible to configure the time during which a window blinks when it has been set the URGENT hint (for example a received message in gajim, but other stuff as well) Changelog for libxfcegui4 4.3.99.2 says the tasklist item blinks 10 times, so if the configuration option is too messy, maybe use 10 as well? Thanks for your time, -- Yves-Alexis
I do not feel very comfortable with this for various reasons. First of all, the blinking is there because the application has set the urgency flag. If the blinking is an annoyance, then maybe the user should take action, that's what urgency is for. It's a bit like disabling a burglar alarm because it's noisy... Next, we switch to libwnck which has no such time-out, so there is no consistency issue with libwnck taskbar in this regard.
Created attachment 1864 Patch to implement the functionnality in xfwm 4.6 Nevertheless, the patch is there if you want to give it a try. As I said, I am yet to be convinced.
Let's start with something different, just blink for a few times, wait a bit and blink again, and so on. That's what is in svn trunk for now (rev. 28024)
(I'm the aforementioned user.) Since my request seems strange, I'd like to get your views on how to address the following usecases: one would like to know when a given event happens (say: a message is received/a contact signs in), and would like this notification to be there until (as you said) “the user takes action”. It looks to me that a notification bubble (through the notification area) doesn't do the job, and that the urgent hint does. The only bit that troubles me is that it has to be indefinitely blinking (that it stops for a bit isn't really better). The idea is to have somewhere a notification that something happened (for example: the item in the taskbar keeps being highlighted-but-no-longer-blinking) until the window gets the focus; currently, the urgent hint achieves this both at WM and at panel level, I just find that it's (for my typical use, I understand that some want urgent things to be highlighted as such) a bit too visually invasive, and I'd really appreciate if one could just make them 'highlight-but-not-blink-at-all' (e.g. tickbox); or better yet: 'highlight-after-n-blinks' (or n seconds). Usually, I can cope focussing an IM window while e.g. debugging something or watching a movie windowed, but for the initial usecase (playing openarena), input is totally grabbed, so one even has to stop it to take action. Mraw, KiBi.
Committed in svn trunk, rev. 28088.