Rules and Alerts: Longhorn's notification & action settings

[Emir214]

NOTE: I edited the post on 26 December 2017 so that Cooperman's demo would be seen in this post without going to YouTube.

Rules and Alerts is present in Longhorn since at least build 4051 (probably even earlier). It is not present in the Control Panel.


However, it may be accessed by clicking the "Options" on the balloon notification such as this one:



Clicking the "Options" button leads to three options: Don't show again, Create an exception, and Rules....



Clicking "Rules..." opens up the Rules and Alerts window.


Clicking "Create a new rule" leads to this window.


"Pick your source here" leads to only one option. (no image) "Pick a person or group here" does not work. (Nothing happens.)

"Pick specific words or phrases here" allows one to type key words which appear on the notifications subject of the rule.


"Never show anything onscreen for these alerts" may be changed to "Show an alert briefly then close it automatically".


"Suppress the sound" may be changed to "Play the default sound". Other options, such as "Conditions", "Actions", and "Special cases for this rule" are grayed out.


The new rule appears in the Rules and Alerts window. Whether it actually works is unknown, since the notifications on "new hardware" I got after setting the rule have the same behavior as those before.


Clicking "General Windows notification" leads to these settings. The default settings are inconsistent with the behavior of the other notifications. (The notifications still appear and play a sound.)


The rule may be deleted by right-clicking it and selecting "Delete Rule".


The Rules and Alerts window is linked to Explorer.exe.


Clicking "Create an exception..." on the balloon on the Options menu leads to this. Note the grayed-out options, including those under "Do Not Disturb".


Clicking "Okay" in the "Create an exception" window leads to a crash. Again, I don't know if the exception actually works.


How this feature is implemented in 4051 is a far cry from Hillel Cooperman's demo at PDC 2003:



Finally, here is Windows 10's notification and action settings, for your comparison.

[Maza]

I loved, loved, loved the Rules and Alerts and Information Agent features; they are so similar to the Rules and Alerts feature of Microsoft Outlook, but applicable to every Item.

Examples of their use include copying or moving Items based on certain conditions—with "WinFS" one could create a rule to forward all photos taken during a business event, for example, as defined by a relationship with one's calendar—to a certain folder; and forwarding alerts about events to a separate device (a capability introduced in Microsoft Outlook 2003).

[Splitwirez]

Is it just me, or do a lot of the Notification interface's elements seem geared towards Plex...? Obviously some elements are from the msstyles and thus appear Slate-styled, but a lot of the custom-styled bits look like they're trying to be the Plex concepts...

[DanielOosterhuis]

It's funny that Microsoft in the end with Vista went back to the popup bubble notifications, while now in Windows 10, the notifications are very much like the scrapped Longhorn ones. Seems after all, they had the right idea back then.

[BF10]

It's funny that Microsoft in the end with Vista went back to the popup bubble notifications, while now in Windows 10, the notifications are very much like the scrapped Longhorn ones. Seems after all, they had the right idea back then.

Microsoft tend to leave features scrapped until later versions. Windows Vista had many delays and had to have some features moved to Windows 7 to reduce the time it takes to finish the version.

[Emir214]

Is it just me, or do a lot of the Notification interface's elements seem geared towards Plex...? Obviously some elements are from the msstyles and thus appear Slate-styled, but a lot of the custom-styled bits look like they're trying to be the Plex concepts...

The "Create an exception..." dialog box appears to have been a holdover from the Plex-era builds, with no design modifications yet.

[Splitwirez]

Is it just me, or do a lot of the Notification interface's elements seem geared towards Plex...? Obviously some elements are from the msstyles and thus appear Slate-styled, but a lot of the custom-styled bits look like they're trying to be the Plex concepts...

The "Create an exception..." dialog box appears to have been a holdover from the Plex-era builds, with no design modifications yet.

That one is definitely the most obvious, but I kinda feel like some of the other ones have hints of that Plex vibe too...

[Maza]

[...]
Examples of their use include [...] and forwarding alerts about events to a separate device (a capability introduced in Microsoft Outlook 2003).

For reference this was the previously mentioned capability introduced in Microsoft Outlook 2003: "Send an alert to my mobile device when I get messages from someone."