I don’t like the Android notifications of the form “safe for X days” after you enter data on a goal with an active emergency-day notification—I like the notifications to be telling me something actionable, like that I need to make progress on my goal, not congratulating me on having done so. Making a goal go out of the red is the ideal way to dismiss the relevant notification: there, I did it, now you can stop bothering me about it for the rest of the day.
The Android app used to work the way I described, or at least you could set the to work that way. But since the latest Android update that doesn’t happen anymore: I find I need to swipe away the notifications even after I enter data and get out of the red, which is incredibly annoying.
Is there any way to make the notifications go back to behaving the way I want them to?
On a scale from 1 (I don’t care) to 10 (I will stop using Beeminder because of this), it’s like a 5. I am not as bothered as zzq (“incredibly annoying” would probably be a 7 or 8), but still it’s something my brain now wastes a couple of instructions on every evening when I clear my meditation goal.
In the Android (system) notification settings for Beeminder there are two options for “Now safe” notifications (on my device). Does disabling these options not disable these notifications?
Good point, that must have been how I turned them off before. I must have forgotten that I had done so.
Actually, I now see that I have two categories named ‘“Now Safe” Notifications’, one disabled (which must be the ones from the previous version), and one not (which I have now disabled.) We shall see if that does what I want, but I certainly expect it to. Thanks, @e70bc7aa68!
You should be able to disable each type of notification in Android settings, as well as change how Android reacts to them. For instance, if you want them to break through Do Not Disturb, if you want them to cause a notification dot, if you want to show them on the Lock screen, if you want them to collapse, if you want them to buzz your device or not.
You can get there from the app’s settings, too. In the latest version, you can go to Troubleshoot Notifications, and tap any of the “Android allows foo notifications” rows.
The notification channel ID changed between v4 and v5. When we add the notification channel in V5, we request Android to delete the old notification channel. Curious that it stuck around on yours, zzq.
Let me know if you’re able to get what you’re looking for after disabling Now Safe notifications in Android settings, zzq, or if we’d need to dismiss the notifications from inside the app to get there.
Having disabled the Now Safe notifications in the Android settings, it seems that now the original notifications, not being replaced by them, stick around until manually dismissed.
That is, I add data to my goal putting me out of the red, and rather than the notification updating to the “Now Safe” notification, it just sticks around indefinitely (or until manually dismissed) as if I was still in the red.
funnily enough, i don’t have any android notifications enabled, but now i also get the “now safe” one after entering data on a beemergency via the app. i just disabled both “now safe” system notifications. will report back tomorrow just in case it didn’t work.
Update: as I haven’t been able to get notifications to work in a way I’m happy with, for now I’ve given up and turned off all my notifications. I think that I am sufficiently plugged into Beeminder that I don’t really need them to prompt my actions—or at least that’s the theory I’m going with for now.
As a Beedroid user myself, it makes sense to me that the notifications don’t auto-dismiss when I dispatch the beemergency. I think it’s satisfying to see it become “Now Safe”, see how safe I now am, and triumphantly dismiss it.
But auto-dismiss is not crazy to me either.
To make sure I understand, are the following the hypothetical design choices we could make?
Status quo: no auto-dismiss, things are broken if you turn off Now Safe
Option 1 is slightly better than 0 but sad for @zzq et al. It might be my own first choice as the maximally paternalistic and anti-magic option but that may not matter because Android may make it all but impossible to actually implement. Which means option 3 is probably a can of worms, if having a setting weren’t bad enough. Let’s keep that one off the table. Which makes option 2 sure look appealing and maybe a big simplification of the code? And keeping @zzq happy is a nice bonus, though I’m not sure when we’re going to be able to prioritize this again.
I wonder if we could sit on Android’s settings here. It’s a little unconventional, I think, but we could, for instance, have something like “Emergency Day Reminders” and “That One Party Guest Emergency Day Reminders”. Android lets us add a small description to each channel, beyond the name, too. In our app, we generate both kinds. We default to the channel we think users will like best, and if they want the other, they change which is enabled in Android settings.
We aren’t providing settings, Android is. We aren’t adding conditionals in our app, Android is handling it.
Update: User-me paid more attention and [embarrassed-emoji] turns out I agree with @zzq after all! The “Now Safe” notifications feel annoying and dumb and bad and wrong.
I think Adam does know of users who like the “Now Safe” reminders though? Maybe one of them should make their case here? Otherwise, could killing now-safes altogether and autodismissing when beemergencies are dispatched be both simpler and better?
