App badges via notifications

[James Burke]

Can we use the notification API as a way to get app badges? By badges I mean being able to update the app icon on the homescreen to show an unread count badge over it, or to just fully replace the app icon to reflect app state.

If an app sends a notification either with a designated “tag” value, ‘@badge’ perhaps, that notification is used to update the icon for the app. The special behaviors on this kind of notification, as compared to other notifications:

* The “body" of the notification is used for the text overlay on the icon, for things like unread count. Guidance is that only about N characters (maybe 3) are shown, anything longer gets clipped. The homescreen decides the styling of this text overlay.

* if an “icon” is specified in the notification, that icon replaces the app icon on the homescreen. This would be useful for something like Calendar which could then update the displayed day to the current day.

* If the app closes this notification, the application icon reverts to the manifest-specified one.

* These kinds of notifications do not wake the screen or vibrate or cause sound, they are just icon area updates on the homescreen.

The idea was to leverage an existing API that has similar characteristics in an effort to get to an endpoint on the feature capability sooner. It looks like bug 1003400 could be used to track this feature in general, if it seemed like we wanted to start investigating this more.

James

[Dale Harvey]

We have all the ability for applications to update their icons in the same way web content currently does now, by defining a new |<link rel="icon"|, (gmail uses this to change the unread favicon on gmail)

The reason we dont do this now is due to trust issues with packaged applications I believe, but a single icon seems like an inherently insecure method of trust anyway so I assume we want to fix the already existing trust issues and then we can let applications update their own icons however they desire

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[James Burke]

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 10:41 AM, Dale Harvey <da...@arandomurl.com> wrote:

We have all the ability for applications to update their icons in the same way web content currently does now, by defining a new |<link rel="icon"|, (gmail uses this to change the unread favicon on gmail)

The reason we dont do this now is due to trust issues with packaged applications I believe, but a single icon seems like an inherently insecure method of trust anyway so I assume we want to fix the already existing trust issues and then we can let applications update their own icons however they desire

For this particular feature for badges, I would be fine if we discard the ‘icon’ option to update the icon to avoid needing a definitive resolution on that trust question, and just allow the text overlay by using the notification ‘body’. I was assuming the homescreen would want to draw those badge numbers anyway, not the app, to give a uniform unread badge look for all apps on the homescreen.

James

[Marcus Cavanaugh]

And not to divert the thread, but icon modification would be beneficial
for other reasons too (clock showing the correct time, calendar showing
the correct date).

On 09/02/2014 04:02 PM, James Burke wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 10:41 AM, Dale Harvey <da...@arandomurl.com
> <mailto:da...@arandomurl.com>> wrote:
>
> We have all the ability for applications to update their icons in
> the same way web content currently does now, by defining a new
> |<link rel="icon"|, (gmail uses this to change the unread favicon on
> gmail)
>
> The reason we dont do this now is due to trust issues with packaged
> applications I believe, but a single icon seems like an inherently
> insecure method of trust anyway so I assume we want to fix the
> already existing trust issues and then we can let applications
> update their own icons however they desire
>
>
> For this particular feature for badges, I would be fine if we discard

> the �icon� option to update the icon to avoid needing a definitive

> resolution on that trust question, and just allow the text overlay by

> using the notification �body�. I was assuming the homescreen would want

> to draw those badge numbers anyway, not the app, to give a uniform
> unread badge look for all apps on the homescreen.
>
> James
>
>
>
>

[Rob MacDonald]

Just wanted to add that this is a great thread and timely as UX is considering app badging as part of our upcoming round of concepting. We’ll be exploring multiple concepts and evaluating them as part of our ongoing usability research. In the meantime, please keep us in the loop on any of the technical discussions, constraints or opportunities.

Thanks!

Rob

On Sep 2, 2014, at 4:08 PM, Marcus Cavanaugh <m...@mcav.com> wrote:

And not to divert the thread, but icon modification would be beneficial for other reasons too (clock showing the correct time, calendar showing the correct date).

On 09/02/2014 04:02 PM, James Burke wrote:

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 10:41 AM, Dale Harvey <da...@arandomurl.com
<mailto:da...@arandomurl.com>> wrote:

   We have all the ability for applications to update their icons in
   the same way web content currently does now, by defining a new
   |<link rel="icon"|, (gmail uses this to change the unread favicon on
   gmail)

   The reason we dont do this now is due to trust issues with packaged
   applications I believe, but a single icon seems like an inherently
   insecure method of trust anyway so I assume we want to fix the
   already existing trust issues and then we can let applications
   update their own icons however they desire


For this particular feature for badges, I would be fine if we discard

the ‘icon’ option to update the icon to avoid needing a definitive

resolution on that trust question, and just allow the text overlay by

using the notification ‘body’. I was assuming the homescreen would want

to draw those badge numbers anyway, not the app, to give a uniform
unread badge look for all apps on the homescreen.

James




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