[MacTUG] Spaces - popup alert/attention dialog windows how to find them?

[Steve Hellyer]

Hi Glenn,

Try this... With spaces activated

In iCal set an event to happen a few minutes from your current time  
and day. Then set an alarm to happen 1 minute before the event with a  
message.  Now switch spaces away from the space iCal is running in. I  
think you will notice that it will pop-up the event warning in your  
current working space and overtop of all windows.

So as you will see it's not really an problem with Space or OS but  
more with application and/or version or perhaps the low priority  
nature of the notification.

Does the application icon bounce or other animation indicating that  
application needs attention?  This is something the developers can  
support. It would be near impossible to work around an alert when  
doesn't seem to be notifying user.

Regarding "second problem"... (and I think if your application  
supported bouncing icon notification the second would not really be a  
problem.)

Spaces application is designed really as a way for your to quickly  
switch spaces or more importantly to move/reorganize applications  
quickly from one space to another.   Basic Application windows are  
shown for this purpose; however, I think you will find dialog boxes  
(and there are several types of these) won't appear likely because  
they are a special case. It's a good feature request and you should  
submit to as such to http://bugreporter.apple.com/ as a feature  
request to show alert dialog boxes in spaces application.

You didn't say which application this occurred with or the  
circumstance of the alert so my best advice is to email or submit a  
feature request with developer asking them to support icon alerts with  
default bouncing or could be other animation.

Work arounds...
-Update application to latest version.
-Try another application.
-Email developer of your application and ask them support dock  
notification under the circumstance you desire.
-You could buy a second monitor so that you can watch that application  
all the time.

Growl is a possible work around but if a developer supported Growl API  
they likely would animate icon to notify user of an event if Growl is  
not installed. Developers that support Growl API are usually quite  
savy this way.

We have not published an API to hook into Spaces. Given the low level  
nature of Spaces we are desiring developers to stay away from this  
area for security and stability reasons. As this is initial release of  
Spaces we are very much open to suggestions for future versions but we  
also need application developers to take advantage of the current  
notification system available to them. Contacting the application  
developer with your report is the best way to get this done properly.

Steve

On 21-Apr-08, at 6:37 PM, Glenn Anderson wrote:
> I am going to try my best to describe this problem.
>
> I have a user of spaces that has noticed a problem. At times an
> application or action causes an alert/attention (not sure of the
> correct Apple term) dialog window.
>
> One problem/issue is that this dialog window doesn't open in the
> current spaces window that he is using, but in one of the other spaces
> windows.
>
> The second problem, and it is more of a problem, is that when he looks
> at the spaces overview window (the one showing all screens) the dialog
> window for some reason doesn't appear.
> So he is required to toggle through all the windows looking for it.
>
> Has any one encountered this? If so any solutions?
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