My thoughts on Growl

[rk]

Hello!
I have finally decided to write up my thoughts on Growl, and the forums seem to be the perfect place for them. It may be that everything I express in this post has already been spoken about elsewhere, and some of my issues may have already been dealt with in development versions, but below are my thoughts on Growl.

My major issue with Growl is the display of notifications. In my opinion, the whole preferences pane for both "Applications" and "Display Options" needs to be rethought. The central problem, in my view, is the Priority model. Notifications should not be set up based on a priority model, because priority is something that is rarely pre-determined, but instead is best left for the human brain to decide when it sees the notification. Right now when we look at the Display Options pane, there is a list of notifications, and a limited number of preferences which allow the user to adjust opacity, duration, and colour for different priorities. I see this as a flawed system. Suppose I want to have Adium notify me when my contacts sign on or off. Right now, I can select a notification for all of Adium's notifications, such as bubbles, and then I can individually enable or disable notifications, as well as changing their Display type and priority.

A better design would be to have "Display Presets" which would be customized under a new preset pane, which would replace the "Display Options" pane. A source list would still exist on the left side, but would be replaced with a "Default" entry, and +- buttons on the bottom (see Mail.app's Account prefs) To the tight would be configuration options. Under this new system, I could add a new preset, for example, "Contact Signs On," and customize the colour, duration, and other settings for this preset. Perhaps I want it to be green and last for 3 seconds. Then I could add a new preset called "Contact Signs Off," which may only be 2 seconds long, but would probably be red to indicate a negative function. The key is that notifications be sorted by type and not priority or display. The computer determines type, and the human determines priority, rather than the other way around.

The applications pane could exist, or it could be removed. If it were to remain, a list of applications plus their notifications would be visible, along with the presets created as per the previous paragraph. The user would select the appropriate preset for the notification, and drag it over or select it. If this is too redundant, the Applications pane could be merged with the presets pane. The preset source list would contain drill-down style applications, and then any notification could be selected and configured, including the top level application (replacing the app's default display). Finally, the application implementation could be moved to where I think it belongs – in the own application's preferences. Adium already has a whole section for events, so incorporating an API wouldn't be a big change for what seems to be Growl's most prolific notifier. Then, under the application's preferences, notifications can be enabled or disabled, as well as either having the option to select a preset or customize a preset specifically for that application's notification.

I know development takes time and is difficult for a small team like Growl's, so I hope I haven't been rude or too pushy. I really do love Growl, but I think it would be a lot better if these changes were implemented.

[The_Tick]

I hate leaving a short reply to this, but I've read just the first paragraph (beyond the intro) and it seems to be basing all of this on the fact that priority is still in Growl.

We're ripping out priority after 1.1.

[bgannin]

You've not provided a strong argument for why Applications doesn't need to exist - you simply extended your priority discussion to take it down. It's used for management of application and app notification configuration and will not be going away.

In doing so the following would come to mind offhand:
How would I remove an app from Growl?
How would I change the display for an application?
How would I set application-specific positions? (not display, mind you)
How would I disable specific notifications from an app?

When you look at the Display Options list you are looking at the displays, not notifications, and are configuring their general behavior. Conflating display and application editing is not a win in my opinion.

There's not going to be any sorting of Growl notifications, there isn't now. Priority was used as a mechanism to change color of the display, that's it. As Tick noted, it will be leaving for greener pastures in the future.

Also, why Adium may be one of Growl's larger consumers, it does not singly drive development as dozens of apps (several notable ones such as Yahoo Messenger, Skype, Transmit, NetNewsWire, and others) support it so tailoring in such a way is myopic at best. These developers do not want to be forced to create and maintain new preferences and as such we have a duty not to make more work for them to employ our project.

[rk]

My apologies, I did not know that priorities were being removed for 1.1.
If they did simply exist to change colour, a more general colour option would make more sense, along with the ability to incorporate this colour option into webkit notifications.

When you look at the Display Options list you are looking at the displays, not notifications, and are configuring their general behavior. Conflating display and application editing is not a win in my opinion.

My opinion is that the general configuration of displays does not belong joined to the notification style. I don't want to configure all bezels to last for a certain length of time on a certain screen; instead, I want bezels representing a certain action like a successful connection to be on a certain screen and display for a certain length. The growl interface seems redundant. When I suggested removing the applications pane, it was because the display pane was "combined" into the presets pane. The features currently available in the display options pane are better being configured on a notification basis.

I did not mean to suggest that the applications pane should not exist, but rather that the display options should be merged into applications, allowing for each notification to have full control over its settings, including colour, position, opacity, duration, length, and any other settings. Right now, if I want some notifications to slide and some to wipe using Music Video, I need to duplicate the Music Video display, rather than just configuring this on a per-notification basis.

[bgannin]

My apologies, I did not know that priorities were being removed for 1.1.
If they did simply exist to change colour, a more general colour option would make more sense, along with the ability to incorporate this colour option into webkit notifications.

Priorities are being removed post-1.1, as was noted, not for 1.1.

They did exist to change color based on that passed in priority from the notification, but that functionality is being removed, not redesigned.

Moving it into WebKit notifications isn't a win either, because you ignore the fact there exists displays not made with WebKit - namely Bezel, Bubbles, Smoke, MusicVideo, Nano, iCal, and most all of the built-in ones.

[The_Tick]

My end goal with Growl is to make it so that the person can select a "notification profile" that can be assigned to a specific notification or application.

The problem is getting there is going to take another year or two.

[rk]

My end goal with Growl is to make it so that the person can select a "notification profile" that can be assigned to a specific notification or application.

The problem is getting there is going to take another year or two.

Okay, thank you for the fabulous work on Growl. I guess I'll just have to wait

[tkn]

Does that mean the full set of preferences would be available on a per-app basis? For example, could I set bubble durations to be different for different apps? That does sound great.