Features/NodokaNotificationTheme

= Nodoka Notification Theme =

Summary
Create new theme/engine in Nodoka style for the notification bubbles that are currently plain and ugly looking.

Owner

 * Name: Martin Sourada (mso)

Current status

 * Targeted release:  Fedora 10
 * Last updated: 2008-07-16
 * Percentage of completion: 90%
 * Progress:
 * Write working, feature complete engine: DONE
 * Import the package into Fedora: DONE
 * Add support for notification themes selection into appearance capplet: DONE, fixed and merged upstream
 * Make default
 * Finetune the design: in progress

Detailed Description
Notification-daemon is one of the libraries that though it supports theming, so far no effort has been made to make new, better separate themes for it. In Fedora, unlike Ubuntu, we use the standard theme, which looks ugly. This feature tries to create a better theme designed specially for Fedora, which means it needs to part of the Nodoka Theme.

The development is happening in the same place as the rest of the Nodoka Themes -.

Screenshots
current notification bubbles, new notification bubbles, without compositing enabled, new notification bubble, with compositing, more complex content and arrow

Benefit to Fedora
New theme for notification daemon improves general user experience from the fedora artwork, which is therefore more consistent and better looking.

Scope

 * New engine that provides the same features as the default notification-deamon engine needs to be created and built into Fedora. We need a more convenient way for users to switch between the different themes than having to edit gconf keys.
 * Affected packages:
 * New package: notification-daemon-engine-nodoka (already imported in Fedora)
 * notification-daemon - fix bugs that affects theme switching (seems fixed now)
 * control-center - add support for notification-daemon theme switch (Done, both in Fedora and upstream)
 * fedora-gnome-theme - need to set notification theme to nodoka to make it default in fedora (will be done if this feature is accepted)
 * nodoka-theme-gnome - add notification theme key, set to nodoka (Done)

Test Plan

 * Install notification-daemon-engine-nodoka


 * Testing the engine
 * Set gconf '/app/notification-daemon/theme' key to 'nodoka'
 * Use various software that show notification bubbles
 * Test either with compositing enabled or disabled (the engine behaves slightly different based on the availability of true transparency)
 * Watch if the bubbles are displayed correctly


 * Testing theme selection via gconf
 * Install latest rawhide notification-daemon package (>= notification-daemon-0.3.7.90-1.svn3009.fc10)
 * Switch gconf '/app/notification-daemon/theme' key between 'nodoka' and 'standard'
 * Watch if the change is applied correctly - i.e. the engine is set properly and applications continue showing notification bubbles


 * Testing theme selection via appearances caplet
 * Install latest rawhide control-center package (>= control-center-2.23.4-4.fc10)
 * Switch between various themes in the appearances caplet
 * Look if the notification theme is changed properly (look into /usr/share/themes/*/index.theme files for NotificationTheme key, if not set, notification theme should be set to standard, otherwise it should use the value of the key)
 * Try customizing the selected theme and see if the notification theme stays unchanged


 * Report any issues at rhbz

User Experience
User gets better looking notification bubbles but with same functionality as provides the upstream default theme.

Dependencies
None out of the scope of this future.

Contingency Plan
Stay with the current theme.

Documentation
None available.

Release Notes
Add a note about the change, mention that user can change the theme manually by setting gconf '/apps/notification-daemon/theme' key to 'nodoka' (for the new one) or 'standard' (the old one). Appearances capplet was patched to set the theme according to value of NotificationTheme key set in the gnome meta-theme, so far only the nodoka theme sets this.

I don't think we want to mention manual setting of GConf keys in the release notes. -- MatthiasClasen

I agree - it's not like we relnote the theme or artwork changes each release -- Bill Nottingham