GNOME Updater Applet/Update Process on the Desktop/Popup Dialog vs Notification Applet

From openSUSE

Possible Implementaion

We can do a popup dialog instead of the notification applet, but I'd still be much happier if this dialog minimizes to the notification area as a reminder for the user, if they choose to postpone the update (the dialog would show up immediately instead of waiting for the applet icon to be clicked).

Problem with frequent updates

However, if we happen to have very frequent updates available (which is often raised complaint about Linux distributions) an ever appearing dialog might anger the user (as do web popups) even if this dialog appears only once a day.

We can address this problem the following way:

• Show the dialog/notification only immediately if security updates are available.
• If only recommended updates are available show it once a week (time can be set by user -- I recommend a maximum setting being once a month or turning off recommended updates completely, which would also trigger a warning if package updates are available).

I wanted to go with this as default behavior for the applet, but for a popup dialog in the Mac style, I think this is a must.

Problem with Menu

A general problem I see with adopting a similar concept as the Mac Updater: a lot of the functionality is hidden in Mac's top menu. Something we don't have and adding a menu to the update dialog renders it very cluttered IMHO. An applet can ease this by providing a menu, otherwise we end up with a dialog full of buttons, expanders etc.