Desknotify

Desktop notifications for Node.js as both: API and CLI (command-line interface).

For Windows, Mac and obviously Linux.

1. Introduction

Basically, the purpose of this library is to provide a simple API and CLI for node-notifier, which already does in fact. So, this is a wrapper, and nothing genuine is found here.

2. Installation

To install the Desknotify module, you can just:

~$ npm install desknotify

If you want to use Desknotify from your command line easily, you can install it globally like:

~$ npm install -g desknotify

This way, you will be able to call Desknotify from your console.

3. Examples

Overview

Example 1

Sending a simple desktop notification from a Node.js program:

require("desknotify").notify({
  title: "Some title",
  message: "Some message"
});

Example 2

Sending the same notification from the command line:

~$ desknotify -t "Some title" -m "Some message"

API examples

Example 1

The simplest example possible would be:

require("desknotify").notify();

It should show a notification with the default title, message and icon.

Example 2

The most complex example possible would be:

require("../src/desknotify.js").notify({
  title: "Remember",
  message: "This is only a wrapper!! node-notify (and other OPEN SOURCE software) is doing the hard work under the hood.",
  icon: "/path/to/icon.png"
}).then(function() {
  console.log("Notification process successful.");
}).catch(function(error) {
  console.log("Notification process with errors.");
}).finally(function() {
  console.log("Notification process finished.");
});

In this case, the notification will show the title and message specified, and the image of the icon will be taken from the specified path. Moreover, we are using the returned Promise (by the notify method) to provide a callback for successful notifications, for failed notifications, and for every notification once it is closed.

CLI examples

Example 1

The simplest example possible would be:

~$ desknotify

But it will show the default notification (default title, message and icon).

Example 2

Some more complex examples would be:

~$ desknotify --title "Title of notification" --message "Message of notification" --icon "/path/to/icon.png"

Or abbreviated:

~$ desknotify -t "Title of notification" -m "Message of notification" -i "/path/to/icon.png"

4. Reference

API Reference

Desknotify = require("desknotify"); // {Object}

This object holds all the Desknotify API. It is what you get when you import the NPM module.

Desknotify.notify(...) // {Function}

This is the notifier function of the API. It is the responsible of sending the desktop notifications.

Desknotify.notify(Object:details) // {Object:Promise}

This function should send a notification to the operative system, and the user should see it.

The available parameters are the details, an {Object} with some (or none) of the next properties:

title: {String} the title of the notification.

message: {String} the message of the notification.

icon: {String} the path of the icon of the notification.

The notify function, when it is called, it will return a Promise object. This means that we can chain these methods, passing one callback to each of them:

then: for successfull notifications.

catch: for failed notifications.

finally: for all notifications.

CLI Reference

These are the parameters available for the CLI tool:

1. --title or -t: text with the title of the notification.

2. --message or -m: text with the message of the notification.

3. --icon or -i: text with the path of the icon of the notification.

To test it, you can:

~$ desknotify -t "Title" -m "Message"

Or even this would work as well:

~$ desknotify

5. Conclusion

Desknotify is only a wrapper of various (lots, in fact) (nested) pieces of software.

6. Thanks

Thanks to all the developers that have contributed somehow for this module to be possible.