# bxnotify
A very basic X notification tool.
## Just a Heads-Up
I needed a way to display a short message on screen from a shell
script or a Lua program. I did not need a notification daemon, a
dbus service, or a background process. I just needed a small
program that reads text from stdin and shows it.
bxnotify is the result: a one-shot notification renderer. Each
invocation displays a single notification, then exits. Concurrent
invocations stack vertically, so multiple notifications can be
visible at once.
## Dependencies
- Xlib
- Xft
- A C compiler compliant with the C11 standard.
## Build
Compile __bxnotify__ from source.
```
make
```
## Install
Install the binary and man page. Note that root privileges are not
required as the default destination is `~/.local/`.
```
make install
```
## Uninstall
Remove the binary and man page.
```
make uninstall
```
## Configuration
__bxnotify__ is configured at compile-time by editing config.def.h.
After making changes, the program must be recompiled and
reinstalled. See bxnotify(1) for details.
Command line flags override configuration defaults for font,
colors, alignment, and duration.
## Design & Functionality
__bxnotify__ is built around a set of opinionated primitives:
- One-shot renderer: reads from stdin, shows a notification, exits
- Concurrent notifications stack vertically
- Auto-sized height based on the number of input lines
- Word wraps long lines to fit the configured width
- Dismissed with Mod4+q (sends SIGUSR1 to the owning process)
- Configurable duration in seconds (0 = persist until dismissed)
- Runtime registry at `~/.local/tmp/bxnotify.reg` for stacking,
coordinated with flock(2) and pruned with kill(2)
## Usage
Send a notification from the shell.
```
echo “Notify me about this” | bxnotify
```
Send a multi-line notification.
```
printf “Notify me about this\nNotify me about that” | bxnotify
```
Send a notification with a custom duration.
```
echo “Notify me for a long time” | bxnotify -d 30
```
Send a notification from a Lua script.
```
os.execute("echo 'Notify me about this' | bxnotify")
```
When used with bxwm(1) and bxbar(1), bxnotify complements the
suite by providing visual feedback for system events and scripts
without requiring dbus or a notification daemon.
