[ge-talk] Notification Server?

[Chris Peel]

On 28 May 2007, at 06:21, Mat Hounsell wrote:

> As I sit here at work I would love to receive a notification when  
> my builds finish and I am not focused on that window.
>
> I would prefer an unobtrusive display. Something where I could  
> glance up and easily check. No flashing!
>
> Haiku OS - Free, Open, and Fantastic: http://haiku-os.org/
>
>
>
>
>        
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I joined this discussion over on haiku-development so I may be a  
little bit out of date, but here's a summary of what I said over there:

1. Mac OS X has Growl ( http://growl.info ) and I've written an  
equivalent (Snarl - http://www.fullphat.net/ ) for Windows
2. I think this is the sort of thing you may be looking for
3. I'm no BeOS coder but like the Kit layout (and have stolen the  
model for my own Windows toolkit 'Melon')
4. My view is there would be a notification_server (aka daemon)  
sleeping in the background.  Notifications would be created through a  
new BNotification object (based on a BMessage?) contained in the  
Interface Kit.  The application (e.g. Mail Client) would create a  
BNotification, set its text, title, icon, etc. then hand it over to  
the server by calling BNotification.Show() (or Launch() or Go(), etc.)
4a. The notification server then receives the notification checks it  
own internal list to see (a) if the notification should be displayed,  
(b) at what priority it should be displayed and (c) the UI theme/ 
style/eye-candy to display it in.

Some crucial points:

1. Users who don't want notifications can turn off the  
notification_server to save on resources
2. The end user decides which notifications are displayed through  
management of a config file used by the notification_server
3. Point (2) give two huge benefits:
	- End applications just need to send notifications; they don't need  
to manage them (the server will do this)
	- The user has ultimate control over what their PC is telling them,  
which is how it always should be
4. A preferences applet can be written to manage the  
notification_server config
5. A little app that sits in the Deskbar's shelf (or as a replicant  
anywhere else?) can be used to manage the notification_server (start/ 
stop/restart/etc.)

Any good?

I'd love to do something like this myself but I'm no C++ coder so  
instead would be very willing and able to (a) contribute ideas,  
suggestions, etc. (b) bug-test, (c) host the product (could be called  
'Snarl for BeOS' :D)...

If anyone thinks it's worth pursuing I can put some slides together  
showing all this in more detail...

Chris