motify-send is notify-send with memory.

Like notify-send, it can send notifications to a notification daemon. However, unlike notify-send, it is able to re-use previous notification with given "application name". Thus it can be used to dynamically change the content of a notification.

Consider, for example, notifications about a change of screen brightness: if the user adjusted the brightness in 5 steps, we don't want to send 5 notifications; instead, we want to show a single notification with its content dynamically updated.

It also can close existing notifications.

It is also security-aware, hardened against TOCTOU attacks.

Requirements

• Any version of GCC or Clang;
• CMake 3.0+;
• GLib 2.0 and GIO 2.0 development libraries;
• pkg-config.

Building and installing

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install

Usage

Send a notification

motify-send APPNAME SUMMARY BODY

It will reuse the latest notification belonging to the given APPNAME.

Example:

motify-send myapp "Build Complete" "Your project compiled successfully."

Send with options

motify-send -i /path/to/icon.png -u critical -t 10 myapp "Warning" "Disk space low"

Update an existing notification

By default, subsequent calls with the same APPNAME will replace the previous notification. Use -n to force a new one:

motify-send -n myapp "New Notification" "This won't replace the old one"

Close a notification

motify-send -c APPNAME

Example:

motify-send -c myapp

Options

Option	Description
-i PATH	Path to the icon file
-u URGENCY	Set urgency: 0/low, 1/normal, or 2/critical
-t MILLIS	Set timeout in milliseconds (negative = no timeout)
-n	Force creation of a new notification (never replace)
-c	Close existing notification for the given APPNAME
-H KEY=TYPE:VALUE	Add a custom hint
-h	Show usage information

Custom hints

Hints allow you to attach typed metadata to notifications using the -H KEY=TYPE:VALUE syntax.

Supported hint types

Type	Format	Example
bool	true/false or 0/1	-H suppress-sound=bool:true
byte	empty, single char, or #XX hex	-H hint-name=byte:#01
double	floating-point number	-H hint-name=double:3.14
str	string	-H category=str:system
i16, u16, i32, u32, i64, u64	integer	-H x=i32:42

For type byte, empty string means NUL byte (\0).

Application name rules

The APPNAME must:

• Not be empty;
• Contain only alphanumeric characters, underscores (_), or hyphens (-);
• Not start with -.

How it works

motify-send persists notification IDs per application name using a storage file in $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (or, if not set, in /tmp).

License

MIT. See LICENSE.MIT for details.