taskbar blinking never stops

Yes, it would be better if it blinked a few times then just stayed bold. Seb, is this a quick fix?

Thanks for your bug report. The issue seems to be described and probably fixed by http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=325176 and the patch included there.

Daniel, the upstream bug seems to be theme changes, not a behaviour change.
Mark, I'll have a look on it, marking on the list of bugs we want to have a look on for dapper

Oh yes, sorry - I misinterpreted the 'loop time' thing.

I gave it a try yesterday but it seems not trivial, the list of tasks is destroyed/recreated after every change (opening of a new window, etc) so a counter attached to the task glowing would be reseted.

What issue are we trying to fix here. The need to switch to an another task to stop the glowing while you are doing something?

I had a brief talk with Vincent who said there is a bug somewhere upstream about stopping the glow on mouseover, would that be good enough?

The behaviour should be that the task bar item blinks for 5 seconds, then stays bold (but not blinking) until something causes it to need to blink again. Clicking on the item should raise the relevant window and make it not bold.

> What issue are we trying to fix here. The need to switch to an
> another task to stop the glowing while you are doing
> something?

The reason I filed this bug is that many times there is no way to stop the blinking, e.g. when doing an update via update-manager. What seems to happen is that both a window and its MODAL child window start blinking, and there is no way to stop the blinking of the parent.

While might be a bug in the apps, this happens for many apps (e.g. xmms) and therefore I though a workaround was needed at the libwnck level.

> The reason I filed this bug is that many times there is no way to stop
> the blinking, e.g. when doing an update via update-manager. What
> seems to happen is that both a window and its MODAL child window
> start blinking, and there is no way to stop the blinking of the parent.
>
> While might be a bug in the apps, this happens for many apps (e.g.
> xmms) and therefore I though a workaround was needed at the
> libwnck level.

This issue has been fixed in CVS HEAD yesterday, I believe.

That would be

2006-01-22 Elijah Newren <newren gmail com>

 * libwnck/tasklist.c (wnck_task_state_changed): when we get a
 demands-attention/urgent state change and the window doesn't have
 a button in the tasklist, see if one of its ancestors does. Fixes
 #317541.

which would fix Maurizio's issue, but not Mark's request... hm.

I'm just wondering if it's possible to turn the blinking off in gconf/some random text file? I'm asking because there are some accessibility issues with this (broken?) feature. See http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/wai-pageauth.html#tech-avoid-flicker .

No, there is no such configuration option at the moment

not for dapper

the bug has been fixed upstream now

libwnck (2.19.5-0ubuntu1) gutsy; urgency=low

  * New upstream version:
    Features
    - Install wnckprop utility
    - Add tooltips for workspaces in the pager
    - New wnck_screen_get_workspaces() API
    - New wnck_workspace_get_layout_row(), wnck_workspace_get_layout_column()
      and wnck_workspace_get_neighbor() API, to get layout information about a
      workspace (Vincent)
    - New wnck_workspace_get_screen() API
    - New wnck_window_is_below(), wnck_window_make_below() and
      wnck_window_unmake_below() API
    Deprecations
    - Deprecate wnck_screen_get_workspace_index(). wnck_workspace_get_number()
      should be used
    - Deprecate wnck_screen_calc_workspace_layout(),
      wnck_screen_free_workspace_layout() and WnckWorkspaceLayout
    - Deprecate wnck_screen_get_workspace_neighbor().
      wnck_workspace_get_neighbor() should be used
    - Deprecate wnck_tasklist_set_minimum_width(),
      wnck_tasklist_get_minimum_width(), wnck_tasklist_set_minimum_height(),
      wnck_tasklist_get_minimum_height(). They are useless with the new sizing
      algorithm
    Fixes
    - Improve a bit drawing of the pager
    - Fix logic when cleaning up after dragging a window from the pager
    - Use the last allocation of the tasklist as a basis for the fake allocation
      used to compute the size hints. This gives better results.
    - Rationalize the using of icon names/names in the tasklist and the pager
    - Do not put state indicators in the tooltip text of tasklist buttons
    - Fix compilation of wnckprop
    - Import minor fixes from the XFCE fork (small leak, and safety checks)
    - Code cleanups
    - Use g_type_class_add_private() everywhere
    - Use GSlice when it makes sense
    - Probable fix to show windows needing attention not shown in the viewport
    - Make wnckprop able to change properties of windows and screens
    - Make wnckprop translatable
    - Redraw a workspace in the pager when the state of a window changes and is
      relevant
    - Stop the glowing effect in the tasklist for urgent windows after a while
      (LP: #28757)
    - Add new fade-max-loops to control the number of loops before the glowing
      effect stops. Makes it possible to nearly disable the effect.
    - Don't draw dots for group buttons in the tasklist, but use gtk_paint_tab()
    - Make the glowing effect in the tasklist use cairo. This also makes it work
      with RGBA.
    - Makes it possible to drag a window from a grouped task menu of the tasklist
    - Never group together in the tasklist windows without a class
    - Add new mode to wnckprop to interact with a workspace
    - Add new modes to wnckprop to interact with a class group or an application
    - Improve wnckprop command line arguments
    - Add some XSync calls where needed in libwnck for wnckprop to work
    - Make wnckprop use the real X server timestamp when needed
    - Fix size of buttons in tasklist changing with the text. This should be an
      important usability improvement.
    - Fix image of tasklist buttons floating outside of the buttons when buttons
      are small
    - Update the window action menu when a workspace is created/destroyed, and
  ...