Growl
May 29th, 2007
Growl is a utility that throws notifications up on your screen when an application tells it to, or a system event occurs. What events? Which applications? That’s up to you. There’s a substantial list on the Growl site of applications that support it, along with AppleScript.
Murphy has known about Growl for a long time, but had never gotten around to installing it. It’s definitely a cool utility, and the notifications are pleasant eye-candy. Murphy’s not sure what he’s going to do with it yet. He’s still playing around with GeekTool, which can display information on your Desktop. The two utilities are very different, but there’s definitely some crossover.
Growl notifications can be configured as “sticky” - you click to clear them. But the default is to fade in and out quietly. Murphy likes this unobtrusive behavior.
You can choose from a variety of styles for your Growl notifications. The smoked style might look familiar if you use Google Reader shortcuts, Google Notifier, or Skype.
You can also receive notifications from a remote computer. Murphy plans on digging into this feature for another screencast. A while back there was an effort to make a Wordpress Plugin that could send Growl notifications to a remote machine. That would be very interesting.
There’s also a Mail plugin that displays the contents of new mail messages. Another can display the track playing in iTunes.
How do you use Growl? Tell us in the comments.
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May 29th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Dear Murphy,
Beg your pardon. I didn’t intend to steal your website’s bandwidth. Actually, I just googled for the pic and I linked to it.
I’ll change the pic to blogger’s server. Nevertheless, in the future, you can active “HotLink protection” in your server which prevents other websites from directly linking to files on your website.
Best regards,
Ricardo
May 29th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Thanks Ricardo -
It really hasn’t been a problem yet so I’m hoping to avoid having to add yet another security countermeasure.
I appreciate you removing the link. Feel free to delete my comment.
May 29th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
I use Growl a lot - I have a low battery countdown (5% down to 1%) setup via Proxi (http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/proxi/) and a few other apps I use communicate through it, including Newsfire, Transmit, ecto, CoverSutra and Coda.
And my favourite style? Got to be ‘Music video’.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
I use Growl for everything. Just about every Applescript I write I integrate Growl into it. I also use it with the Unix Remind program to get alerts for my timed reminders. If an app has Growl integration, I always turn it on. I’ve even written an Applescript that displays a random Growl message using the ‘music video’ theme that’s run every 15 minutes by cron. It gives me nice unobtrusive messages to help me stay focused and mindful at work. It’s a great app.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
I won’t argue. I can see where Growl is very appealing. I like that look when Skype and Google use it too - without Growl.
The unobtrusive nature of Growl is really something.
May 31st, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Growl is amazing!
Add in some GrowlTunes, some HardwareGrowl, and a plethora of other apps, and I know everything that is going on. I’d be lost without it.