node-notifier

Send cross platform native notifications using Node.js. Notification
Center for macOS, notify-osd
/libnotify-bin
for
Linux, Toasters for Windows 8/10, or taskbar balloons for earlier
Windows versions. Growl is used if none of these requirements are met.
Works well with Electron.
Input Example macOS Notification Center

Quick Usage
Show a native notification on macOS, Windows, Linux:
const notifier = require('node-notifier');
// String
.notify('Message');
notifier
// Object
.notify({
notifiertitle: 'My notification',
message: 'Hello, there!'
; })
Requirements
- macOS: >= 10.8 for native notifications, or Growl if earlier.
- Linux:
notify-osd
orlibnotify-bin
installed (Ubuntu should have this by default) - Windows: >= 8, or task bar balloons for Windows < 8. Growl as fallback. Growl takes precedence over Windows balloons.
- General Fallback: Growl
See documentation and flow chart for reporter choice.
Install
npm install --save node-notifier
CLI
CLI has moved to separate project: https://github.com/mikaelbr/node-notifier-cli
Cross-Platform Advanced Usage
Standard usage, with cross-platform fallbacks as defined in the reporter flow chart. All of the options below will work in some way or another on all platforms.
const notifier = require('node-notifier');
const path = require('path');
.notify(
notifier
{title: 'My awesome title',
message: 'Hello from node, Mr. User!',
icon: path.join(__dirname, 'coulson.jpg'), // Absolute path (doesn't work on balloons)
sound: true, // Only Notification Center or Windows Toasters
wait: true // Wait with callback, until user action is taken against notification
,
}function(err, response) {
// Response is response from notification
};
)
.on('click', function(notifierObject, options, event) {
notifier// Triggers if `wait: true` and user clicks notification
;
})
.on('timeout', function(notifierObject, options) {
notifier// Triggers if `wait: true` and notification closes
; })
If you want super fine-grained control, you can customize each reporter individually, allowing you to tune specific options for different systems.
See below for documentation on each reporter.
Example:
const NotificationCenter = require('node-notifier/notifiers/notificationcenter');
new NotificationCenter(options).notify();
const NotifySend = require('node-notifier/notifiers/notifysend');
new NotifySend(options).notify();
const WindowsToaster = require('node-notifier/notifiers/toaster');
new WindowsToaster(options).notify();
const Growl = require('node-notifier/notifiers/growl');
new Growl(options).notify();
const WindowsBalloon = require('node-notifier/notifiers/balloon');
new WindowsBalloon(options).notify();
Or, if you are using several reporters (or you’re lazy):
// NOTE: Technically, this takes longer to require
const nn = require('node-notifier');
new nn.NotificationCenter(options).notify();
new nn.NotifySend(options).notify();
new nn.WindowsToaster(options).notify(options);
new nn.WindowsBalloon(options).notify(options);
new nn.Growl(options).notify(options);
Contents
- Notification Center documentation
- Windows Toaster documentation
- Windows Balloon documentation
- Growl documentation
- Notify-send documentation
Usage:
NotificationCenter
Same usage and parameter setup as terminal-notifier
.
Native Notification Center requires macOS version 10.8 or higher. If you have an earlier version, Growl will be the fallback. If Growl isn’t installed, an error will be returned in the callback.
Example
Because node-notifier
wraps around terminal-notifier
,
you can do anything terminal-notifier
can, just by passing
properties to the notify
method.
For example:
- if
terminal-notifier
says-message
, you can do{message: 'Foo'}
- if
terminal-notifier
says-list ALL
, you can do{list: 'ALL'}
.
Notification is the primary focus of this module, so listing and activating do work, but they aren’t documented.
All notification options with their defaults:
const NotificationCenter = require('node-notifier').NotificationCenter;
var notifier = new NotificationCenter({
withFallback: false, // Use Growl Fallback if <= 10.8
customPath: void 0 // Relative/Absolute path to binary if you want to use your own fork of terminal-notifier
;
})
.notify(
notifier
{title: void 0,
subtitle: void 0,
message: void 0,
sound: false, // Case Sensitive string for location of sound file, or use one of macOS' native sounds (see below)
icon: 'Terminal Icon', // Absolute Path to Triggering Icon
contentImage: void 0, // Absolute Path to Attached Image (Content Image)
open: void 0, // URL to open on Click
wait: false, // Wait for User Action against Notification or times out. Same as timeout = 5 seconds
// New in latest version. See `example/macInput.js` for usage
timeout: 5, // Takes precedence over wait if both are defined.
closeLabel: void 0, // String. Label for cancel button
actions: void 0, // String | Array<String>. Action label or list of labels in case of dropdown
dropdownLabel: void 0, // String. Label to be used if multiple actions
reply: false // Boolean. If notification should take input. Value passed as third argument in callback and event emitter.
,
}function(error, response, metadata) {
console.log(response, metadata);
}; )
Note: The wait
option is shorthand for
timeout: 5
. This just sets a timeout for 5 seconds. It does
not make the notification sticky!
Without wait
or timeout
, notifications are
just fired and forgotten. They don’t wait for any response.
To make notifications wait for a response (like activation/click),
you must define a timeout
.
Exception: If reply
is defined, it’s
recommended to set timeout
to a either high value, or to
nothing at all.
For macOS notifications: icon
,
contentImage
, and all forms of
reply
/actions
require macOS 10.9.
Sound can be one of these: Basso
, Blow
,
Bottle
, Frog
, Funk
,
Glass
, Hero
, Morse
,
Ping
, Pop
, Purr
,
Sosumi
, Submarine
, Tink
.
If sound
is simply true
,
Bottle
is used.
See Also:
Custom Path clarification
customPath
takes a value of a relative or absolute path
to the binary of your fork/custom version of
terminal-notifier
.
Example:
./vendor/mac.noindex/terminal-notifier.app/Contents/MacOS/terminal-notifier
Spotlight clarification
terminal-notifier.app
resides in a
mac.noindex
folder to prevent Spotlight from indexing the
app.
Usage: WindowsToaster
Note: There are some limitations for images in native Windows 8 notifications:
- The image must be a PNG image
- The image must be smaller than 1024×1024 px
- The image must be less than 200kb
- The image must be specified using an absolute path
These limitations are due to the Toast notification system. A good
tip is to use something like path.join
or
path.delimiter
to keep your paths cross-platform.
From mikaelbr/gulp-notify#90 (comment)
You can make it work by going to System > Notifications & Actions. The ‘toast’ app needs to have Banners enabled. (You can activate banners by clicking on the ‘toast’ app and setting the ‘Show notification banners’ to On)
Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (Version 1709) Note:
With the Fall Creators Update, Notifications on Windows 10 will only
work as expected if the correct appID
is specified. Your
appID
must be exactly the same value that was registered
during the installation of your app.
You can find the ID of your App by searching the registry for the
appID
you specified at installation of your app. For
example: If you use the squirrel framework, your appID
will
be something like com.squirrel.your.app
.
The default behaviour is to have the underlying toaster applicaton as
appId
. This works as expected, but shows
SnoreToast
as text in the notification.
Snoretoast is used to get native Windows Toasts!
const WindowsToaster = require('node-notifier').WindowsToaster;
var notifier = new WindowsToaster({
withFallback: false, // Fallback to Growl or Balloons?
customPath: void 0 // Relative/Absolute path if you want to use your fork of SnoreToast.exe
;
})
.notify(
notifier
{title: void 0, // String. Required
message: void 0, // String. Required if remove is not defined
icon: void 0, // String. Absolute path to Icon
sound: false, // Bool | String (as defined by http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh761492.aspx)
wait: false, // Bool. Wait for User Action against Notification or times out
id: void 0, // Number. ID to use for closing notification.
appID: void 0, // String. App.ID and app Name. Defaults to no value, causing SnoreToast text to be visible.
remove: void 0, // Number. Refer to previously created notification to close.
install: void 0 // String (path, application, app id). Creates a shortcut <path> in the start menu which point to the executable <application>, appID used for the notifications.
,
}function(error, response) {
console.log(response);
}; )
Usage: Growl
const Growl = require('node-notifier').Growl;
var notifier = new Growl({
name: 'Growl Name Used', // Defaults as 'Node'
host: 'localhost',
port: 23053
;
})
.notify({
notifiertitle: 'Foo',
message: 'Hello World',
icon: fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/coulson.jpg'),
wait: false, // Wait for User Action against Notification
// and other growl options like sticky etc.
sticky: false,
label: void 0,
priority: void 0
; })
See more information about using growly.
Usage: WindowsBalloon
For earlier versions of Windows, taskbar balloons are used (unless
fallback is activated and Growl is running). The balloons notifier uses
a great project called notifu
.
const WindowsBalloon = require('node-notifier').WindowsBalloon;
var notifier = new WindowsBalloon({
withFallback: false, // Try Windows Toast and Growl first?
customPath: void 0 // Relative/Absolute path if you want to use your fork of notifu
;
})
.notify(
notifier
{title: void 0,
message: void 0,
sound: false, // true | false.
time: 5000, // How long to show balloon in ms
wait: false, // Wait for User Action against Notification
type: 'info' // The notification type : info | warn | error
,
}function(error, response) {
console.log(response);
}; )
See full usage on the project homepage:
notifu
.
Usage: NotifySend
Note: notify-send
doesn’t support the
wait
flag.
const NotifySend = require('node-notifier').NotifySend;
var notifier = new NotifySend();
.notify({
notifiertitle: 'Foo',
message: 'Hello World',
icon: __dirname + '/coulson.jpg',
// .. and other notify-send flags:
urgency: void 0,
time: void 0,
category: void 0,
hint: void 0
; })
See flags and options on the man page notify-send(1)
Thanks to OSS
node-notifier
is made possible through Open Source
Software. A very special thanks to all the modules
node-notifier
uses.
Common Issues
Windows: SnoreToast
text
See note on “Windows 10 Fall Creators Update” in Windows section.
Short answer: update your
appId
.
Use inside tmux session
When using node-notifier
within a tmux session, it can
cause a hang in the system. This can be solved by following the steps
described in this
comment
There’s even more info here https://github.com/mikaelbr/node-notifier/issues/61#issuecomment-163560801.
macOS: Custom icon without Terminal icon
Even if you define an icon in the configuration object for
node-notifier
, you will see a small Terminal icon in the
notification (see the example at the top of this document).
This is the way notifications on macOS work. They always show the
icon of the parent application initiating the notification. For
node-notifier
, terminal-notifier
is the
initiator, and it has the Terminal icon defined as its icon.
To define your custom icon, you need to fork
terminal-notifier
and build your custom version with your
icon.
See Issue #71 for more info https://github.com/mikaelbr/node-notifier/issues/71.
Within Electron Packaging
If packaging your Electron app as an asar
, you will find
node-notifier
will fail to load.
Due to the way asar works, you cannot execute a binary from within an
asar
. As a simple solution, when packaging the app into an
asar please make sure you --unpack
the vendor/
folder of node-notifier
, so the module still has access to
the notification binaries.
You can do so with the following command:
asar pack . app.asar --unpack "./node_modules/node-notifier/vendor/**"
Using with pkg
For issues using with the pkg module. Check this issue out: https://github.com/mikaelbr/node-notifier/issues/220#issuecomment-425963752
Using Webpack
When using node-notifier
inside of webpack
,
you must add the snippet below to your
webpack.config.js
.
This is necessary because node-notifier
loads the
notifiers from a binary, so it needs a relative file path. When webpack
compiles the modules, it supresses file directories, causing
node-notifier
to error on certain platforms.
To fix this, you can configure webpack to keep the relative file
directories. Do so by append the following code to your
webpack.config.js
:
: {
node__filename: true,
__dirname: true
}