Beep strangenesses ( was Re: [squeak-dev] issue allocating more memory for the image)

Eliot Miranda eliot.miranda at gmail.com
Sat May 24 22:14:37 UTC 2014


On Sat, May 24, 2014 at 3:10 PM, Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com> wrote:

> Let's bloviate about the characteristics of this sort of UI element, a
> beep, and see if we can identify anything interesting:
>
>   - Beep is a way to get the users attention assuming their speakers
> are turned on and not muted.
>

and they're sittign at their machine, not elsewhere doing something
different


>   - Beep accesses a different sense than the screen so, for example,
> if you want to be elsewhere in the same room, not actively looking at
> the screen, but want software to pre-empt your attention ASAP.  But I
> think this should be application-specific, not deep in the system.
>

I find a notifier in a bright colour quite informative enough.


>   - Beep does not need any particular graphical or framework
> dependency.  That's nice.
>

But a dependency on system sound, as we've seen, is problematic.


>   - Beeps are not informative, but are "irregular" which, to me, would
> be an indication of something _wrong_, something negative not
> positive.
>

Um, Skype and FB beep me all the time as part of their normal notification
process.  Not indicating anything wrong.


>   - Beeps can be less-intrusive than a modal pop-up, because while it
> may cause the user to pause and wonder what the beep is about, it
> doesn't require any action to get rid of it like modal pops do -- the
> sound is just there and gone.
>

We're not talking about a modal pop-up.  We're talking about augmenting (as
some of us are arguing, unnecessarily) the opening of a notifier.


>   - However, it's VERY intrusive, IMO, to arbitrarily introduce
> noise-pollution into the users environment.  Unacceptably so.
>
> So, overall, I can't think of any good reason base Squeak should ever
> beep at the user.  If it were anything, it would be something related
> to mis-use of low-level gestures -- like a key combination that's
> common in the outside world but different or not accepted in Squeak.
>

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.


>
>
> On Sat, May 24, 2014 at 3:38 PM, tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:
> >
> > On 22-05-2014, at 3:47 PM, tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:
> >> It’s something to do with SoundService default etc.
> >
> > I’m still trying to puzzle out why on earth we ended up with the system
> beep being involved in a complex services regime. The beep is supposed to
> be a trivially simple way to get a noise out of the system when you need to
> have some alert that doesn’t rely upon anything complex. That’s why it is a
> primitive; that way if you need something more complex because a noise
> isn’t appropriate (or possible?) you can make it flash a light or set off
> some dynamite, or (rather mundanely) write to a console.
> >
> > Did anyone come up with an especially good reason for the complication?
> I’m willing to be persuaded if there is a good argument.
> >
> > tim
> > --
> > tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> > Strange OpCodes: FSE: Fake Serious Error
> >
> >
> >
>
>


-- 
best,
Eliot
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