Snarl (software)

Last updated
Snarl
Developer(s) Snarl Team
Initial release2007;15 years ago (2007)
Stable release
3.1 / 14 March 2014;8 years ago (2014-03-14)
Operating system Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
Type global notification system
License 2-clause BSD
Website snarl.fullphat.net

Snarl is a notification system for Windows inspired by Growl that allows applications to display alpha-blended messages on the screen.

Contents

Unlike other forms of notification, Snarl does not hijack the current focused window, nor does it force the taskbar to be visible. Notifications can either be canceled by clicking on them, or left to disappear automatically if ignored for a period of time.

Snarl can display several messages at any one time; new messages are simply displayed beneath (or above) existing ones. An application can display any number of messages, and can update the content, icon, and time the message appears for any particular message at any time and explicitly remove the message if required. Applications can also request to be notified if a user clicks on a particular message.

Developers of other applications can include Snarl support in their applications with almost no effort at all - Snarl uses Windows window messaging functionality to show and hide notifications, making it accessible to any programming language from low-level pure C to high-level Visual Basic 6 or .NET-based environments.

Features

Applications supported by Snarl

Snarl-Specific applications

Related Research Articles

The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is Microsoft's core set of application programming interfaces (APIs) available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. The name Windows API collectively refers to several different platform implementations that are often referred to by their own names ; see the versions section. Almost all Windows programs interact with the Windows API. On the Windows NT line of operating systems, a small number use the Native API.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual Basic .NET</span> Object-oriented computer programming language

Visual Basic, originally called Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), is a multi-paradigm, object-oriented programming language, implemented on .NET, Mono, and the .NET Framework. Microsoft launched VB.NET in 2002 as the successor to its original Visual Basic language, the last version of which was Visual Basic 6.0. Although the ".NET" portion of the name was dropped in 2005, this article uses "Visual Basic [.NET]" to refer to all Visual Basic languages released since 2002, in order to distinguish between them and the classic Visual Basic. Along with C# and F#, it is one of the three main languages targeting the .NET ecosystem. As of March 11, 2020, Microsoft announced that evolution of the VB.NET language has concluded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Screen reader</span> Assistive technology that converts text or images to speech or Braille

A screen reader is a form of assistive technology (AT) that renders text and image content as speech or braille output. Screen readers are essential to people who are blind, and are useful to people who are visually impaired, illiterate, or have a learning disability. Screen readers are software applications that attempt to convey what people with normal eyesight see on a display to their users via non-visual means, like text-to-speech, sound icons, or a braille device. They do this by applying a wide variety of techniques that include, for example, interacting with dedicated accessibility APIs, using various operating system features, and employing hooking techniques.

In computer science, message queues and mailboxes are software-engineering components typically used for inter-process communication (IPC), or for inter-thread communication within the same process. They use a queue for messaging – the passing of control or of content. Group communication systems provide similar kinds of functionality.

A taskbar is an element of a graphical user interface which has various purposes. It typically shows which programs are currently running.

Clarion is a commercial, proprietary, fourth-generation programming language (4GL), multi-paradigm, programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) from SoftVelocity used to program database applications. It is compatible with indexed sequential access method (ISAM), Structured Query Language (SQL), and ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) data access methods, reads and writes several flat file desktop database formats including ASCII, comma-separated values (CSV), DOS (binary), FoxPro, Clipper, dBase, and some relational databases via ODBC, Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase SQL Anywhere, and Oracle Database through the use of accelerated native database drivers, and XML, Clarion can be used to output to HTML, XML, plain text, and Portable Document Format (PDF), among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Growl (software)</span>

Growl is a deprecated global notification system and pop-up notification implementation for the Mac OS X and Windows operating systems. Applications can use Growl to display small notifications about events which may be important to the user. This software allows users to fully control their notifications, while allowing application developers to spend less time creating notifications and Growl developers to concentrate on the usability of notifications. Growl can be used in conjunction with Apple's Notification Center that is included in Mac OS X 10.8 and higher.

In computing, the X Window System is a network-transparent windowing system for bitmap displays. This article details the protocols and technical structure of X11.

Microsoft WinHelp is a proprietary format for online help files that can be displayed by the Microsoft Help browser winhelp.exe or winhlp32.exe. The file format is based on Rich Text Format (RTF). It remained a popular Help platform from Windows 3.0 through Windows XP. WinHelp was removed in Windows Vista purportedly to discourage software developers from using the obsolete format and encourage use of newer help formats.

AutoRun and the companion feature AutoPlay are components of the Microsoft Windows operating system that dictate what actions the system takes when a drive is mounted.

Dynamic-link library (DLL) is Microsoft's implementation of the shared library concept in the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems. These libraries usually have the file extension DLL, OCX, or DRV . The file formats for DLLs are the same as for Windows EXE files – that is, Portable Executable (PE) for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, and New Executable (NE) for 16-bit Windows. As with EXEs, DLLs can contain code, data, and resources, in any combination.

As the next version of Windows NT after Windows 2000, as well as the successor to Windows Me, Windows XP introduced many new features but it also removed some others.

There are a number of security and safety features new to Windows Vista, most of which are not available in any prior Microsoft Windows operating system release.

In programming and software design, an event is an action or occurrence recognized by software, often originating asynchronously from the external environment, that may be handled by the software. Computer events can be generated or triggered by the system, by the user, or in other ways. Typically, events are handled synchronously with the program flow; that is, the software may have one or more dedicated places where events are handled, frequently an event loop.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AmigaOS</span> Operating system for Amiga computers

AmigaOS is a family of proprietary native operating systems of the Amiga and AmigaOne personal computers. It was developed first by Commodore International and introduced with the launch of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, in 1985. Early versions of AmigaOS required the Motorola 68000 series of 16-bit and 32-bit microprocessors. Later versions were developed by Haage & Partner and then Hyperion Entertainment. A PowerPC microprocessor is required for the most recent release, AmigaOS 4.

Some of the new features included in Windows 7 are advancements in touch, speech and handwriting recognition, support for virtual hard disks, support for additional file formats, improved performance on multi-core processors, improved boot performance, and kernel improvements.

Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM), formerly known as Google Cloud Messaging (GCM), is a cross-platform cloud solution for messages and notifications for Android, iOS, and web applications, which as of June 2022 can be used at no cost. Firebase Cloud Messaging allows third-party application developers to send notifications or messages from servers hosted by FCM to users of the platform or end users.