Re: I want to have Growl notify me when a NSMenuExtra or NSStatusItem changes

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Daniel Siemer

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Jun 4, 2012, 11:41:21 AM6/4/12
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I doubt there is any public api, and we won't be dealing with private
api's in any shipped Growl app. Some of these things are in
HardwareGrowler, some more of them could be added in in the future.
HardwareGrowler 2.0 is built around a plugin api, which while not
planned to be public initially, might be eventually, and even if it
isn't, if you make a good case, we will consider adding plugins that
do more of what you want notifications on.

On top of that, monitoring items that aren't reliably there is
awkward, what if the user want's wifi notifications but he doesn't
want the wifi icon in his menu bar?

On Jun 3, 11:03 pm, Chris Martin <cmartin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there a way to have Growl report a status change in NSMenuExtra
> or NSStatusItem? For example, AirPort/WiFi disconnect, network change,
> Growl notifications by the hour instead of a voice-over for people to keep
> track of time, temperature alerts over a certain value, ARD client mode
> changed to "monitored" et cetera? I know certain apps integrate this, like
> Cody Kreiger's gfxCardStatus, but it growls on GPU change instead of Growl
> growling on menu item change.
>
> Any interest, is it doable by the team, or is there a way to write a plugin
> to enable this function?

Christopher Forsythe

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Jun 4, 2012, 9:15:27 PM6/4/12
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I'd take a step back and look at what you actually want here. The menu items are kind of a red herring, since you really want to know about what caused these status items to change, and not the status items changing themselves.

You have some great examples. I'd start by looking at what isn't covered by hardwaregrowler. The hourly thing you talked about might be a good low hanging fruit for your example.

One thing to note, is that in general you probably want to see a notification for something that you can do something about.

Chris

On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 11:03 PM, Chris Martin <cmart...@gmail.com> wrote:
Is there a way to have Growl report a status change in NSMenuExtra or NSStatusItem? For example, AirPort/WiFi disconnect, network change, Growl notifications by the hour instead of a voice-over for people to keep track of time, temperature alerts over a certain value, ARD client mode changed to "monitored" et cetera? I know certain apps integrate this, like Cody Kreiger's gfxCardStatus, but it growls on GPU change instead of Growl growling on menu item change.

Any interest, is it doable by the team, or is there a way to write a plugin to enable this function?

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Chris Forsythe

Chris Forsythe

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Jun 5, 2012, 11:20:41 AM6/5/12
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I think you misunderstood my point. You wouldn't care about the NSStatusItem changing, you would care about what's actually happening. So if there is some NSDistributedNotificationCenter notification sent out, or a file that is modified, or whatever, then you could notify about that. You wouldn't care about the status item since that doesn't give you much context. The icon simply switched out for a different resource (image) file, or some other programatic method to change the display to the end user.

So with ARD specifically you could start to figure out if there's an actual way to know if the status changes. If not then perhaps you need to look to see if there's a tcp connection on a specific port, or whatever. But I don't think that the status item addresses what you're looking for.

Hopefully this makes what I was saying a bit clearer. :)

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Chris Forsythe

On Tuesday, June 5, 2012 at 9:07 AM, Chris Martin wrote:

"The menu items are kind of a red herring, since you really want to know about what caused these status items to change, and not the status items changing themselves."

Actually, that is what I want to see. That makes more sense. Thing is, I (although I should be careful what I do at school anyway) want to know when ARD kicks in because it's a strict school... not that I do anything inappropriate by anyone's definition, but because I want to look like I'm working :)

Having this feature alone could possibly lead to a greater audience for Growl—"Try Growl, the app that tells you when you're being watched!* (*some conditions apply)"
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Chris Forsythe

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