Xcbnotif

This software is a simple notification displayer for X sessions. It must be launched once at the beggining of a session and stay in the background. It will read commands from the /tmp/xcbnotif.fifo fifo. Its configuration is in the file $HOME/.xcbnotif_config.

Concepts

A notification is a little window spawned on one corner of the screen. To draw notification, you must write the right command onto the /tmp/xcbnotif.fifo file. Colors and font are fixed at launch time by reading the config file. To refer to a special type of notification (defined by colors and font), each type is given a name (see configuration). A type is called a level.

This software won't listen for incoming notifications in dbus. If you want this functionnality, use another software as a link, like cow-notify [1].

Configuration

It has a tree-like configuration. A key is identified by a name and a namepath, followed by its value is after a colon. The value must not contain spaces. A typical line could be path1.path2.key : value.

Tree

The values accepted are :

• global : it is the namespace where the general config is done.
  • list : a comma separated list of all the notification levels, eg urgent,normal.
  • width : the default width in pixel of a notification. It can be specified for each levels.
  • gravity : In which corner of the screen the notifications will be displayed. Accepted values are top_right, top_left, bottom_right and bottom_left.
  • padding : namespace containings the details about padding from the borders of the screen.
    • hori : the horizontal padding in pixels.
    • vert : the vertical padding in pixels.
    • space : The space between two notifications.
  • gc : the namespace for the default graphical details.
    • bg : the color of the background.
    • fg : the color of the text.
    • bc : the color of the border.
    • width : the width of the border.
    • font : the font used for the text. It must be the pattern for an X core font eg -misc-fixed-*. If no font is specified, the default one is used : -*-terminal-medium-r-*-*-14-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*.
• //mode// : the namespace to configure a special level. It must have been first declared in global.list. The values set here override the default ones setted in global.
  • gc : level-specific graphic namespace. It contains accepts the same entries as global.gc. If it contains an invalid valid, the program will not create the level.
  • width : Same as global.width, but for a specific level.

Colors

The colors can be written using three syntaxes :

• #x : where x is in [0-9a-f]. It is a shade of grey.
• #rgb : the rgb conponents, each in [0-9a-f].
• #rrggbb : the rgb conponents, each in [0-9a-f], but with more precision.

Commands

There are five commands accepted :

• notif : creates a new notification. It must have three arguments. The first one is an integer stating the time in seconds the notification must stay on the screen. The second one is the level of the notification. Finally, the third one is the text of the notification. If the level does not exists, the notifiation will not be printed.
• close : close the newest notification.
• close_all : close all the notifications.
• end : close all the notifications and stops the server.
• kill : same as end.

[1] https://github.com/Cloudef/cow-notify