Desktop Notifications Specification

Mike Hearn


      
     

Christian Hammond


      
     

William Jon McCann


      
     

Version 1.2


Table of Contents

Introduction
Basic Design
Backwards Compatibility
Markup
Hyperlinks
Images
Icons and Images
Priorities
Formats
Categories
Urgency Levels
Hints
D-BUS Protocol
Message commands
Signals

Introduction

This is a standard for a desktop notifications service, through which applications can generate passive popups to notify the user in an asynchronous manner of events.

This specification explicitly does not include other types of notification presentation such as modal message boxes, window manager decorations or window list annotations.

Example use cases include:

  • Messages from chat programs

  • Scheduled alarm

  • Completed file transfer

  • New mail notification

  • Low disk space/battery warnings