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

1. Install .NET sdk on WSL2
   • .NET 8 is confirmed to work
2. Clone the repo

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

3. Build the app

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

4. Run the app

   ./out/WslNotifyd

5. 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

1. Build the app first
2. 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
3. Sending notification automatically runs WslNotifyd by systemd/D-Bus

   notify-send foo

   • Maybe you need to restart WSL
4. Use systemctl command to stop WslNotifyd

   systemctl --user stop WslNotifyd

Todo

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

Uninstall

1. 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
2. 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