Re: [WebNotifications] omnibus feedback reply, new draft

On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 12:16 PM, John Gregg <johnnyg@google.com> wrote:
> * replaceId attribute which allows notifications to be replaced.
>
> The use case for the replaceId is multi-tab web applications.
> Currently specified, it is easy to produce unwanted duplicate
> notifications for the same purpose (e.g., the same meeting reminder),
> and difficult to avoid except by using something like shared workers
> as a point of synchronization.  Using a replacement ID means that
> duplicates cancel each other out cleanly, and also allows in-place
> updates.  This functionality is supported natively by libnotify, and
> can be simulated on other platforms by closing and opening.

I'm happy about this, as it also opens up a number of other use-cases
for free.  For example, a webapp may want to use notifications for
events that are "bursty" and can sometimes come in fast enough that it
would be annoying to pop a notification for each one.  Integrating the
time into the replaceId, perhaps truncated to every 10 seconds or
every minute as appropriate for the app, provides virtually free
assurance that the user won't accidentally be swamped with alerts, a
task which otherwise requires manual tracking of the "last update"
time.

~TJ

Received on Thursday, 22 April 2010 19:29:35 UTC