Currently, there doesn't seem to be a good way for a web application to
provide notifications to the user when the window or tab with the
application isn't visible. Typical use cases would be notifications for new
incoming messages (IM or email), and showing status updates of long-running
operations (for example batch image upload by a photo manager).
Gmail works around this by constantly changing the window title to notify
of a new instant message, but that isn't really a reliable method.
I think it would be very useful to provide support for an abstract
notification method for web applications that doesn't interfere with
whatever the user is currently doing (so no Javascript alerts), and that's
implemented in a platform-appropriate way, for example message bubbles
shown in the system tray notification area, or Android status bar pulldown
or toasts.
It should be usable both for transient messages (that disappear
automatically with no interaction) and persistent ones (that stay until
closed).
The feature should of course require explicit permission to avoid random
web pages from abusing it, ideally controllable separately for individual
applications and globally. For example, it's necessary to be able to
temporarily suppress popups while giving a presentation.
Some related links:
http://standards.freedesktop.org/systemtray-spec/systemtray-spec-
latest.html
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Notification.html
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/Toast.html
Original issue reported on code.google.com by Klaus.We...@gmail.com on 9 Jul 2009 at 8:29
Original issue reported on code.google.com by
Klaus.We...@gmail.comon 9 Jul 2009 at 8:29