725615 - consider using Sliding alert for some messages in the Account manager

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Account Manager, enhancement)

Description

[:aceman]

This is inspired by bug 472959 comment 49.

The Account manager currently does some sanitizing actions (bug 472959, bug 238583, etc.) when it encounters invalid data in account settings (can happen via migration, upgrade or manual editing of prefs.js). It fixes the values in the fields, sometimes silently, sometimes with a dialog window.

Consider using a sliding alert to inform the user about the automatic changes but to not block him.

Comment 1

[:aceman]

Looks like this is the interface to use:
alertService = Cc["@mozilla.org/alerts-service;1"]
                 .getService(Ci.nsIAlertsService);
.showAlertNotification(imageUrl, title, text, true, "", observer);

Comment 2

[:aceman]

It seems to work, but I have noticed one problem. When more alerts come up simultaneously, the last one is on the top and covers the previous ones. They disappear when their times expire, so there is no guarantee the user will be able to read all of them.

It is well possible there will be more alerts at once when I convert all the checks/sanitizing the AM does. So I probably need to build some queue of alerts and do not popup the next one until the previous one finishes. I don't think the alerts can be drawn stacked vertically.