Ubuntu – Can I make centered desktop notifications

displaygnomemintnotificationnotify-osd

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Now I am currently using osd_cat, installed with xosd.
It does the job perfectly for me since it is customizeable to my needs.
You can even choose a font from the output of xlsfonts

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I would like to overlay custom text as a notification.

It is important that the notification is non obtrusive (does not take away window focus).

I made an 8 second video to show what I am trying to do:

8 second sample clip

I am aware of zenity, xmessage, and notify-send, and I don't think any of these can do what I am trying to do.

I am willing to use png's as overlays if custom text is harder to do.

This was inspired by Linux Mint's Change Workspace OSD:

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Edit

After some research , I have found a gnome-osd package, which by the way uses python, and installed simply with sudo apt-get install gnome-osd.

The properties , such as text location can be configured with gnome-osd-properties tool. Sending messages is the same syntax as notify-send. The notifications are non-obtrusive. I've tested that with command sleep 10; gnome-osd-client "This is a test message" and switched on working in firefox until the text came up; I was still able to write in firefox even when notification was drawn on the screen.

Bellow you can see the example with test message:

Another alternative is to use osdsh , which works pretty much the same, launch the daemon with osdsh , configured with osdshconfig and send message with osdctl -s "TEST STRING"

Original Post

notify-send doesn't specify options for location. Use zenity or xmessage

zenity gives centered popups by default. Example :

zenity --info --text "Hello world"

xmessage has to be configured according to -geometry flag specified in man page for X (man x). But you need to know size of your screen, which can be found with xrandr , xprop -root , or xwininfo -root. Example:

xmessage "Hello world" -geometry 250x250-130+100

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to customize on-screen notifications

There is no official way of modifying the notifications, but many changes can be made to the notifications bubbles by installing a 3rd party patch which allows various changes to be made. More details are available here: http://www.webupd8.org/2012/06/closable-movable-notifyosd.html

To install:

Open a terminal window and enter these commands one by one:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:leolik/leolik 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install libnotify-bin
pkill notify-osd

This installs a patched version of the notify-osd package. Then you will need to install the GUI configuration tool, to do this enter these commands one by one into a terminal window:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install notifyosdconfig

To use the congfiguration tool type "notify" into the dash and launch the NotifyOSD Configuration application.

enter image description here

Modifying the Notifications

From this application you can change the colour of the notifications by clicking on the Background Colour box (in the picture below I've turned it a horrible green!).
To change the length of time the notifications appear on screen adjust the value in the Timeout box

enter image description here

The tool also includes other customisations including:

Change font, opacity, size, corner radius
Disable fade out
Close the notifications on click
Enable/disable "use Dash background colour for the notification bubbles"

Changing the position

To change the location that the notification appears you need to open a terminal and enter the following:

gsettings set com.canonical.notify-osd gravity #

the # in the above code should be replaced by a number between 1-6 depending on where you want the notification to appear (3 doesn't seem to work for me though):

1 - top-right corner
2 - middle-right
3 - bottom-right corner
4 - bottom-left corner
5 - middle-left
6 - top-left corner

enter image description here

In the Position drop down box you can choose from Fixed and Dynamic, dynamic gets rid of the gap between the notification bubble and the top dash

Ubuntu – How to make notifications appear on a specific monitor

For an imperfect workaround, install dconf-editor (provided by the package dconf-tools), navigate to Apps > notify-osd and change the value of multihead mode to focus-follow.

This will draw the volume notifications a little too high up on your left monitor, causing them to overlap the panel - but they will at least be drawn on your left monitor. Email/message/music/other notifications don't overlap and look fine using this method.

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Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to customize on-screen notifications

Ubuntu – How to make notifications appear on a specific monitor

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