flashing windows when receiving a chat message

This would be great!
I REALLY miss this feature

This feature (lack of) is the only thing stopping our workplace taking on Coccinella as the default messaging client.

Flashing objects in the interface is no option because this can cause epileptic seizures:
http://www-03.ibm.com/able/guidelines/java/javaavoidblnk.html

There must be another non-flashing solution that is also accessible to people with epileptics...ideas are welcome!

solutionA) change the color of the button in the taskbar (i.e.: dark blue as the other flashing-buttons).

solutionB)
or, as i wrote in the bug description, hide+show the window (instead of making it simply 'topmost'), so it would reappear:
B1) at the top of other windows, and
B2) as last button in the taskbar: it would be easier to find it, because if i have lots of open windows there is more probability that the windows i'm actually using are the last ones, and so the taskbar buttons would be the last ones.
This will also produce a visible change, and will attract my attention while i'm at the computer.

solutionC)
I also suggest to create a normal option to enable/disable the flashing; it would cover the needs of people with epileptics.
Make it disabled by default, and all would be happy.

This is my workaround to apply in ::Chat::GotMsg function, file "Chat.tcl":
---cut here---
   TabAlert $chattoken
   XEventCancel $chattoken

   # 12th June 2009 - Mirko Graziani, <email address hidden>
   # https://bugs.launchpad.net/coccinella/+bug/297580
   # Bring the window over the others, but since
   # the "wm focusmodel" is set to 'passive',
   # the user is not interrupted in his work.
   wm focusmodel $dlgstate(w) passive
   wm attributes $dlgstate(w) -topmost 1
   wm attributes $dlgstate(w) -topmost 0

   # Put an extra (*) ....
---cut here---

Bringing the window to the front works a treat. Now only if I could actually get it to wrap under windows......

Is it possible when the chat window is minimised, that when a new chat comes in, that the icon/button in the task bar changes colour and/or slowly blinks as per other applications. Slowly blinking does not induce an epileptic seizures as per the article referenced (less than 2Khz is okay. So we can flash once per second safely.)

With the workaround that mirkobau wrote, is it possible to change the colour of the title bar until focus is given back to the window?

Thanks guys.

flashing taskbar buttons is a featur unavailable in windows, except if you add some third-party plugins to coccinella source, and none of those plugins are GPL licensed, for what i have seen.

again, for what i have seen, changing the color of the taskbar button is a feature that is not directly available in tcl/tk.

I think it's possible to change the icon; maybe making the bug turn around could be an interesting solution, and i think it should not provoke epilectic attacks, because it would be a "fluid" motion.

i'll try to make this happen in the next days, but it'll not be easy: this week will be quite full for me.

In the IBM page post:

"If the application must use blinking elements, use frequencies that are less than 2Hz or greater than 55Hz."

The application can blink 1 time over five seconds for example.

Mirkobau's patch in comment #6 has been applied and will be available in the upcoming release. You can give feedback whether this helps the situation for you.

I don't have epilepsy, some else does. The options are not to flash the task bar icon, but flash the system tray icon, if you don't want to flash it, then just animate it like 2 frame per second.

  Hello!
  You all have probably forgotten my suggestion about animated tray icon. :)
  I have even made a simple 2-frame animation for that purpose and attached it to this bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/coccinella/+bug/140411
  I like an idea of coccinella flapping wings when a message arrives into invisible chat window.
  You can see that animation in your browser to get the idea. As I have already said, there is a link to it in my bugreport.

  I would appreciate any ideas about this and your opinions about my variant of animation.

  To developers: I'm not sure using an animated image would be good. Instead, people usually use a set of frames in one file. The application just takes those frames one by one and puts into system tray with some interval. So, in this case we do not need a true animated image, but we need just a set of few images one next to another in PNG file, for example.

  What do you think?

  Vladimir.

Hi,

it is not forgotten, also me as one of the developers, the flashing window is annoying me on kde too, but its not highest priority on my todo list. I also added the other bug report to milestone 0.96.20 to not forget about it. At least regarding the flashing window, there will be sth. done, I promise.

regarding the tray icon, i have no idea right now how what the "correct" way is to implement it. But I like your animated icon ;)

Sander, any suggestions, maybe we sould merge those two tickets? They have different roots, but in the end, one solution for both can be found.

cheers,
Sebastian

I think the other bug entry can be kept separate as it is more like a feature wish.