Xfce 4.10
Seamonkey 2.12.1

Hi: I'm writing a mail in Seamonkey's mail client, and right now pressing Send. A message notifying me the mail has been succesfully dispatched is suppose to appear on the screen, remain there for a short while so I can see it and read it (it's trying to notify something to someone), and vanish. But the time that window remains open is so short, that no human being will be able to notice it, let alone to read it.

Is this behavior an exclusive property of Seamonkey, or is this the trend followed by most GUI mail clients or CUIs?

I do not use Seamonkey, but Thunderbird which behave the same, and I think this is a good approach. This message is just minor information. If user did not catch to read it then nothing bad will occour (but user must be aware that no message or very short means successful), when message will be error, then it stay longer (forcing use interaction). However there are some other approaches:

1. Message with button: it will wait as user read it and press button, but it would be uncomfortable in this situation. For every mail you press "Send" button and then you must press another button accepting confirmation message.

2. Message showing up only if some process take some minimum time (I saw this in Total Commander), so user get no information at all if for example copying small file, and see progressbar if it take longer, because it copy big file.

3. For one program I created for other people (unfamiliar with computers too good) I decide to insert a delay about 3 seconds, so user can read information without needing to press another button. It is minor information, I would just not need to presented it for me, but I saw that these people press button few times, thinking that no return information equals no action performed.

Thanks. I like approach 3. If there is a (hardware) timer, and dedicated instructions in most high level languages to use it, why not use it? I also had to do some programming, and I remembered how much I hated to be prompted to do somethings. HOwever, I found it easy to force user interaction with something like this:

CONFIRM(Y/N)?

(All output was scrolling.) And I knew the computers operators would hate me.

EDIT: the criteria to understand user requirements and the way to convey information to them, before development, enters into the category of an interlanguages. We need a language to exist to bridge developers to user's needs. I say this on the basis that the software firm wants to know the user needs.

The message you see is send from Seamonkey to XFCE's notify daemon. You can set the appearance of the notification and how long it is shown using xfce4-notifyd-config.

You are very considerate. Thanks.

Maybe we are speaking of two different things. The format of the message window, for the notifications you spaeak about, is quite different to those of the notification I mention in post #1. I say this, because sometimes, I've managed to see them.

You are right, it seems that Seamonky has its own notify system without an option to set the duration of displaying the message.

I think the duration depends only on the machine's speed.

It should be configurable.

http://www.seamonkey-project.org/rel...eamonkey2.1a1/

But sorry, I have no idea how to change the timeout with libnotify, and a quick search didnt give me any good hints or links.

I just gave Seamonkey's mail program a try and its notifications didn't at all look like my usual ones, they even appeared in a different section of the screen.
Anyways, you don't configure the display duration in libnotify, since libnotify does not display the messages. All that this library does is sending the messages to whichever notify daemon is listening (in the case of XFCE it is xfce4-notifyd), which in turn displays the message. You have to change the duration in the notify daemons settings.