#1823 (Enhancement) Frequent, impossible-to-disable messages from new calibration loader on Windows 10

+1 1

Closed as Implemented
Component: DisplayCAL | Milestone: 3.1.1
Created by Sarah Gerweck

Last modified

Unfortunately, the new Calibration Loader tray application currently interacts badly with the Windows notification system. It pops up a notification every time I open DisplayCAL, close DisplayCAL, log in, start a movie, stop a movie, etc. These notifications violate the OS guidelines for the use of notifications, and—more important—are *impossible to disable* either in the application or at the OS level. First, I would request that you follow Microsoft’s guidelines about when to do notifications [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh465391.aspx]. I believe that none of the notifications currently raised meet the requirements for an appropriate notification event. Specifically, they’re not opt-in, don’t constitute an invitation to switch to your app or take action, and are 100% under the category of “routine maintenance events.” It may be that you find them useful for debugging, but really the correct place for information like this is in the application event log, not in a pop-up window: pop-up windows are really meant to be restricted to opt-in events where the user may want to take immediate action (e.g., the receipt of an instant message). Unfortunately, the calibration loader also thwarts the scheme Microsoft provides to allow users to revoke permission from apps that abuse the notification system. Because it’s launched as pythonw.exe and not a proper app, Calibration Loader doesn’t have an identity that allows the user to opt out of its notifications. Restarting Windows or logging out and back in is enough to lose the setting that suppresses notifications. This means there is no way to silence these frequent notifications in a lasting way. Although I would strongly advocate for the use of events rather than notifications, I would be happy enough if you would just make all these notifications an opt-in setting (or even just make it *possible* to opt out of them in Windows 10).

Before Reboot (image/png | 2016-02-18 01:12:58)

4 comments on “Frequent, impossible-to-disable messages from new calibration loader on Windows 10”

  1. That seems to be an MS home-made problem – they turned the previous, relatively unobtrusive ballon-style messages into comparatively huge notification boxes with audible alert sound under Windows 10. The way to disable them should be like in previous versions of Windows: Right-click the task bar, properties, notifications, set to “only show icon”.

    https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh465391.aspx

    MS are really good at obscuring their documentation. The only way to find that page if you don’t know the URL already is to search for “Toast Notifications”, that would have never occurred to me because it’s not even relevant to the API I’m using (the one that actually is relevant is https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dn742472%28v=vs.85%29.aspx).

    […] the correct place for information like this is in the application event log

    I strongly disagree. The user has the right to know that a critical component like the display calibration has been temporarily disabled and why. When MS does not provide a sane way to convey such information to the user, that is unfortunate.

    Restarting Windows or logging out and back in is enough to lose the setting that suppresses notifications.

    I can’t reproduce this. The setting seems to stick on my system.

  2. I’m having the same issue. The setting in Windows 10 to turn off the notifications for the profile loader don’t stick after a reboot.

    Before reboot all notification settings for the calibration loader disabled
    After reboot, notification banners reenabled

    I’m mostly fine with the popups without the sound, but it would be nice to get rid of them completely.

    This is probably a problem with Windows but it would be nice if the profile loader had it’s own option to disable notifications.

  4. I’ve switched to my own notification implementation to overcome the limitations of the Windows notification system. It’s a bit of a shame because it duplicates functionality that is part of Windows itself, but seeing as the latter suffers from compatibility breakage that MS has introduced in Win10, I think this is a reasonable choice. The latest beta contains the notification system changes. http://displaycal.net/temp/DisplayCAL-3.1.0.5-win32.zip

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