DBus signal to disable reminders/notifications

[Bastien Nocera]

On Tue, 2018-12-18 at 22:21 +0100, David Faure wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Is there some spec that would allow to implement a desktop-wide
> signal in 
> order to disable things like calendar reminders, chat notifications,
> new email 
> notifications etc. during a presentation?
> 
> Calligra Stage, LibreOffice Impress and other presentation software
> could emit 
> a dbus signal when starting/stopping a presentation, and
> calendar/email 
> software would listen to that and disable/enable
> reminders/notifications.
> 
> I give professional trainings and give talks at conferences, and it's
> annoying 
> or even embarrassing when (recurring) calendar reminders pop up.
> Imagine if one said "It's time to take one of those anti-baldness
> pills" :-)

There's already an inhibition API for the screensaver which could be
extended:
https://specifications.freedesktop.org/idle-inhibit-spec/latest/

GNOME/GTK has an implementation for other inhibition reasons, which are
implemented in GTK (client-side) and gnome-session (server-side):
https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/GtkApplication.html#gtk-application-inhibit
https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/GtkApplication.html#GtkApplicationInhibitFlags

Full disclosure, I'm listed as one of the authors of US Patent
US8881065B2 which is relevant. It's held by Red Hat and is free for any
Open Source/Free Software to use[1].

Cheers

[1]: https://www.redhat.com/en/about/patent-promise