iNotifyEx is the successor of GriP that will replace the CFMessagePort-based backend with MIG subsystem for higher performance and robustness.

(The Objective-C based GriP front-end will still be kept.)

As a redesign, iNotifyEx shall have characteristics of following APIs:

• Growl-like notifications
• Android-like notifications
• Some GriP-specific addition
• Some iNotifyEx-specific addition

Growl-like notification API has the following characteristics:

• The user has the ultimate decision how the notifications be presented.
• Tickets (per-app settings) and priority (per-message-group settings).
• Coalition.
• Target-action pattern for server reply.
• How the notification should be shown is abstracted out as a theme.

Android-like notification API has the following characteristics:

• Actions are sent together with the notification as a PendingIntent.
• Ticker text.
• The view is customizable via contentView.

GriP-specific additions are:

• Suspension behavior, i.e. lock screen mode and game mode.
• GriP Modal Table View.

iNotifyEx-specific additions currently include:

• Multiple buttons (actions) in a notification
• Sub-notification grouping using coalescent ID.

There are some contradictions between the APIs. In particular, the developer-oriented contentView is mutually exclusive with the user-oriented theme capability. However, as setLatestEventInfo seems more common, contentView is a less important feature. As a result, iNotifyEx will send the following in notification packet:

• Ticket (Growl).
• Message name (Growl).
• Title (Growl; Android — 1st line of tickerText and contentTitle)
• Subtitle (Android — contentText in setLatestEventInfo ).
• Detail
• Icon (≥29x29.)
• Priority (Growl), Sticky (Growl).
• Coalescent ID (Growl)
• Confirm action (Android ~ contentIntent)
• Ignore action (Android ~ deleteIntent)
• Multi-buttons (as arrays of Button title / Remote action pairs)
• Super-notification title, subtitle, icon. (meaningful only when Coalescent ID is not null.)

(The super-notification priority and sticky will be taken as the maximum of those of all sub-notifications. Confirming and ignoring a super-notification is equivalent to doing so on all sub-notifications)

Remote Actions

The actions will be executed remotely. These remote actions will be represented as strings in the form

• module::action arg1 arg2 arg3 ...

If the module:: part is missing, iNotifyEx will assume the module is std. These modules, called Action Providers shall reside in /Library/Application Support/iNotifyEx/Action Providers/module.dylib. The remote action should be implemented as a C function with prototype

• extern void action(CFArrayRef argv);

Each argument of argv must be a CFString, and the 0th element is that module::action.

Arguments are space separated but parenthesis-balanced. That means

• foo bar (baz [blah 42] hello) world "abc def"

will be considered having 5 arguments (foo, bar, (baz [blah 42] hello), world, abc def).

Note: argv will be autoreleased after the function ends. Retain it if you want to use it later.

Standard remote actions include:

• open_url url
• launch displayID [remoteNotificationUserInfo]
• darwin_notification notificationName
• distributed_message centerName messageName [userInfo]
• notification messageName [userInfo] [objectPointer]
• sequence action1 action2 action3 ...
• confirm action confirmTitle [message] [ normal | destructive ]

Theming

http://twitpic.com/ne1vq

Raw Theme API

Currently only 1 function is needed.

• extern void INXShowNotification(CFBundleRef thisBundle, CFStringRef title, CFStringRef subtitle, CFDataRef detail, CFTypeRef icon, int priority, bool sticky, CFStringRef coal_id, CFStringRef super_title, CFStringRef super_subtitle, CFStringRef super_icon);

Should be a bundle as $INXROOT/Themes/myTheme.theme.

Activation

Depends on libactivator to avoid reinventing the wheel :)

<!--

Simple theme

Theming using only images.

Also a bundle as $INXROOT/Themes/myTheme.theme. But Info.plist should contain the INXSimpleTheme dictionary key.

(INXRect t -> {t.x = ?, t.y = ?, t.w = ?, t.h = ?}. ? can be like 240 or 50%.) (INXFont t -> {t.name = ?, t.size = ?}.) (INXColor t -> "#AABBCC")

(INXLabel t -> {INXRect t.frame; INXFont t.font; INXColor t.color; }) (INXImage t -> {filename t.up; filename t.down; }) (INXStretchableImage t -> {INXImage t; INXPoint t.stretch; INXColor t.color; })

Keys of INXSimpleTheme:

• bool minimized.enabled;
• INXRect minimized.frame;
• INXRect minimized.icon.frame;
• INXLabel minimized.title.frame;
• string minimized.transition.style;
• real minimized.transition.duration;
• string minimized.normalization.gesture;
• INXRect content.frame; // x, y ignored here.
• INXRect content.icon.frame;
• INXLabel content.title;
• INXLabel content.subtitle;
• INXLabel content.timestamp;
• INXStretchableImage content.background;
• INXImage content.disclosure.image;
• INXRect content.disclosure.frame;
• INXStretchableImage button.background;
• INXFont button.font;
• INXColor button.color;
• INXStretchableImage selection.background;

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