Any alternative ideas to fullscreen popup-messages?

[Bryan Fink]

On 1/31/07, Michael 'Mickey' Lauer <mickey at openmoko.org> wrote:
> Let's distinguish two types of popup-dialogs:
>
> a) informative (i.e. battery low, incoming sms, sms sent)
> b) confirmative ("Mickey calling. Answer / Ignore / Reject?", "Do you
> want to remove all contacts?")
>
> Right now, we're leaning towards (ab)using the bottom status bar (in
> openmoko-language called 'footer') for informative dialogs and using
> half screen (480x320) popup dialogs for confirmative.
>
> What do you think?

I think the first time it pops up while I'm doing something else
("Mickey calling. Answer/Ignore/Reject?" while I'm putting something
on my calendar), and I accidentally click one of the buttons, I'm
going to be very annoyed.  I'd also be annoyed if I had to deal with
the dialog before going back to whatever I was doing.

My preference would be some system whereby I could select a list of
events that are allowed to interrupt me, and to what level they're
allowed to interrupt - visual: fullscreen/halfscreen/footer/none;
audio: interrupt/mix over/none.

Of course, this only applies to asynchronous events.  As for anything
that is directly related to what I'm doing ("Delete contact?"), your
footer/half-screen plan sounds fine.

One thing I was thinking about, though: what if an app is running in
landscape format - that is, the user is using the phone on its side.
I know there's no orientation sensor, but I can think of a few apps
that might provide a button for switching, or even operate in that
mode by default.  Maybe these apps are considered non-standard enough
that they don't need to be considered for the "standard" dialogs, but
it might be nice to have a guideline.  Popup from left/right half (now
320x480)?  Popup from bottom (now 640x240)?

-Bryan