WslNotifyd

WslNotifyd is an implementation of the Desktop Notifications Specification using Windows native functionality.

Requirements

WSL2 (WSL1 is not confirmed to work)
WSL2 settings
- systemd enabled
- localhostForwarding enabled
- Windows interop enabled
can connect D-Bus user session (check $DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS)
iconv is installed
gtk3 is installed if you want to display images

Usage

Install .NET sdk on WSL2
- .NET 8 is confirmed to work

Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/ultrabig/WslNotifyd.git

Build the app

dotnet publish WslNotifyd -o out && dotnet publish WslNotifydWin --runtime win-x64 -o out/WslNotifydWin --self-contained

Run the app
```
./out/WslNotifyd
```
Send notifications from any app!
```
notify-send 'Hello' 'World!'
```

Supported features

There are usage examples with images on the Wiki with images.

Wait dismiss/action
```
notify-send -w foo
```

Actions

notify-send -A 'action1=aaa' foo
# with icons
notify-send -h 'boolean:action-icons:true' -A 'firefox=Firefox' foo

Urgency (critical only)
```
notify-send -u critical foo
```
Custom icons
```
notify-send -i firefox foo
```

Custom images

# 1*1 blue pixel (width, height, rowstride, has_alpha, bits_per_sample, channels, rgb data array)
notify-send -h 'variant:image-data:(int32 1, int32 1, int32 3, false, int32 8, int32 3, [byte 0, 0, 255])' foo
# specify custom image path
notify-send -h 'string:image-path:/path/to/image.png' foo

Custom sounds

You need to choose from the predefined sounds for the sound-name

notify-send -h 'string:sound-name:ms-winsoundevent:Notification.Reminder' foo

Suppress sounds

notify-send -h 'boolean:suppress-sound:true' foo

Replace existing notifications

$ notify-send -p foo
1
$ notify-send -r 1 bar

Add an inline reply textbox (non-standard KDE feature)

notify-send -h 'string:x-kde-reply-placeholder-text:AAA' -A inline-reply='Reply' foo

Use the following script to monitor replies.

busctl --user \
    --match="type='signal',
        interface='org.freedesktop.Notifications',
        path='/org/freedesktop/Notifications',
        member='NotificationReplied'" \
    monitor

Integration with systemd/D-Bus

Build the app first
Run the installer script
```
./install.sh
```
- This script installs following files into ~/.local
  - D-Bus session service file
    - ~/.local/share/dbus-1/services/org.freedesktop.Notifications.service
  - systemd user unit service file
    - ~/.local/share/systemd/user/WslNotifyd.service
  - WslNotifyd
    - ~/.local/lib/WslNotifyd
Sending notification automatically runs WslNotifyd by systemd/D-Bus
```
notify-send foo
```
- Maybe you need to restart WSL
Use systemctl command to stop WslNotifyd
```
systemctl --user stop WslNotifyd
```

Todo

Map sound naming specification sound-name to ms-winsoundevent name

Uninstall

Remove out directory
- If you used install.sh, then remove following files/dirs
  - ~/.local/share/dbus-1/services/org.freedesktop.Notifications.service
  - ~/.local/share/systemd/user/WslNotifyd.service
  - ~/.local/lib/WslNotifyd
Delete the registry key HKCU\Software\Classes\AppUserModelId\WslNotifyd
```
reg.exe delete 'HKCU\Software\Classes\AppUserModelId\WslNotifyd'
```
Remove quotes when you want to use cmd.exe

Limitations

Markup is not supported
Expiration timeout is not respected much
You cannot use arbitary audio files as notification sounds

starthal/WslNotifyd