1174155 - [meta][system][notifications] FxOS notifications are bad

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Gaia::System::Status bar, Utility tray, Notification, defect)

Description

[Wilson Page [:wilsonpage]]

Attachment: update-toast.png

1. There is no visual consistency between notification types

2. Notification toasts can't be swiped away

3. Utility tray can't be pulled down when a toast is visible

4. Default text (see attached image) is badly positioned

5. The notification sound is global. This is bad (eg. I might want a sound for Facebook notifications, but not Twitter). Apps should be able to define their notification sound, vibrate pattern and even LED color/pattern.

6. Developers have no way to embed rich content into notifications. If notifications could be <iframes> provided by the app, we could do lots of cool stuff with them.

---

This meta bug is here for us to discuss how we can make Firefox OS notifications better. We can spin off blocking bugs as and when needed.

Comment 1

[Wilson Page [:wilsonpage]]

Attachment: default-notification.png

Comment 2

[Wilson Page [:wilsonpage]]

NI Rob for advice here...

Comment 3

[Rob MacDonald [:robmac]]

Totally agree... This needs to be fixed.

For the short term, I think we need to unify the toast with the notification and fix what appears to be a broken layout. I've NI'd Eric about it but I'm not sure if he has the bandwidth right now. Swiping should be reenabled as long as it doesn't conflict with the edge gesture in 2.x.

As for points five and six, both are issues we need to address. I consider them high priority but I'll defer to Wilfred and Gregor to see where they fit in our plans. 

I also think there's an opportunity to do something different here. Notifications are really starting to disrupt people's day-to-day lives. I'd like to minimize this disruption as much as possible to let people focus on what's around them. Having different sounds, grouping notifications, and different priority level would definitely help.

Comment 4

[Wilson Page [:wilsonpage]]

(In reply to Rob MacDonald [:robmac] from comment #3)
> Totally agree... This needs to be fixed.
> 
> For the short term, I think we need to unify the toast with the notification
> and fix what appears to be a broken layout. I've NI'd Eric about it but I'm
> not sure if he has the bandwidth right now. Swiping should be reenabled as
> long as it doesn't conflict with the edge gesture in 2.x.
> 
> As for points five and six, both are issues we need to address. I consider
> them high priority but I'll defer to Wilfred and Gregor to see where they
> fit in our plans. 
> 
> I also think there's an opportunity to do something different here.
> Notifications are really starting to disrupt people's day-to-day lives. I'd
> like to minimize this disruption as much as possible to let people focus on
> what's around them. Having different sounds, grouping notifications, and
> different priority level would definitely help.

+1 for grouping!

I really like Android's distraction free mode. It means I only get intrusive notifications for apps that I care about, all others are silenced.

Comment 5

[Wilson Page [:wilsonpage]]

I don't mind taking short-term styling/layout polish if it's relatively small :)

Comment 6

[Eric Pang [:epang] UX]

(In reply to Wilson Page [:wilsonpage] from comment #5)
> I don't mind taking short-term styling/layout polish if it's relatively
> small :)

I'll be happy to help out and get this consistent (it's been bothering me too)!  Is it possible to generate a list of all possible toasts/notifications?  I want to make sure we cover all bases.

Comment 8

[Wilson Page [:wilsonpage]]

Spoke the Eric offline. He's going to try to get some new visuals together for next week. I see this being a two part job.

v1: Improve visual style and consistency
v2: Improve interactions

Hopefully v1 will be achievable in v2.5 timeframe.

Comment 9

[Michael Henretty [:mikehenrty][:mhenretty]]

(In reply to Wilson Page [:wilsonpage] from comment #0)
> Created attachment 8621567 [details]
> update-toast.png
> 
> 1. There is no visual consistency between notification types

The black toast at the bottom is not really a notification but more like an alert message. Perhaps we should just get rid of it though, and move all those alerts (like app crashes and installs) to be real notifications.

The update toast from the top is a hack that has been around since the beginning. We need to just kill it.

> 
> 2. Notification toasts can't be swiped away

You can swipe up a notification toast to hide it, but perhaps you are suggesting to close notification toasts immediately by swiping left or right?

> 3.Utility tray can't be pulled down when a toast is visible

Bug. Please file.

> 4. Default text (see attached image) is badly positioned

This is just a bug, can you file a separate one for this?


> 5. The notification sound is global. This is bad (eg. I might want a sound
> for Facebook notifications, but not Twitter). Apps should be able to define
> their notification sound, vibrate pattern and even LED color/pattern.

Not true, since I think 2.0 you can specify a soundFile and vibration pattern. LED is a different story since it's not yet part of the WHATWG spec. Bug 1181614 is tracking it.


> 6. Developers have no way to embed rich content into notifications. If
> notifications could be <iframes> provided by the app, we could do lots of
> cool stuff with them.

This is a much longer discussion, and I suggest you post your suggestions to the WHATWG mailing list. FWIW, there has been talk of richer notification content like embedding lists, progress bars, buttons etc. Embedding an iframe is something I haven't seen before, so it's probably worth bringing up.

Comment 10

[BMO Automation]

Firefox OS is not being worked on