Display notifications in Gnome Shell

Question

How can i send notifications in GNOME through a python program? I have tried python bindings like pynotify,python-notify2, but the all give pop-up notifications which are temporary. Is there any python bindings to give notifications on the message tray in GNOME?

Aurelioaurelius

Answer 1

You must use PyGObject, which gives you access to the GNOME platform through the use of GObject introspection. You can read an example in the Arch documentation for Desktop notifications:

from gi.repository import Notify
Notify.init ("Hello world")
Hello=Notify.Notification.new ("Hello world",
                               "This is an example notification.",
                               "dialog-information")
# Hello.set_timeout(0)
Hello.show ()

A timeout value of 0 makes it persistent (until the mouse is moved). For more information check out the PyGObject API Reference.

Neptunian

And you can read some useful tips in wiki.gnome.org/HowDoI/GNotification (in C, but easy to use in Python thanks to the introspection) – Neptunian

i have tried this before and it gives notifications similiar to network or sound notifications. Is there any way to give it on the message tray at the top? – Aurelioaurelius

AFAIK the top bar in GNOME-Shell hasn't any message tray as in GNOME 2. But you can take a look a the Shell extensions extensions.gnome.org – Neptunian

Anyway, with this code the notification stay in the notifications area (bottom) until the user wants (doesn't works for you?) – Neptunian

It need not be message tray, is there any other way in GNOME to give notifications on the top panel in the screen?? And this code does work in my system. – Aurelioaurelius

AFAIK not by default, but take a look at this extension: extensions.gnome.org/extension/495/topicons – Neptunian

But looks that you want to do a shell extension: wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeShell/Extensions – Neptunian

Answer 2

In GNOME 3 the message tray is located at the bottom and nowhere else. Look at this extension in order to change the position notifications appear in.

Tiptoe