A couple of emails came through the other day that I didn’t catch right away. This set me on a quest for a good notification system for my email. I need something where if I step away from my computer for 30 seconds that I can see that I got an email during that time. Or, if I am working on something that I can’t stop, I need something that will quietly sit and remind me that something needs attention when I have a chance.
GMail Notifier
The first program that I installed was the GMail Notifier. It can check for email and display a regular Notify OSD notification when one comes in. What caught my attention was that it said “highly Ubuntu integrated”.
So, I used Software Center to install the gm-notify package.
Then, I opened Gmail Notifier Configuration from the menu.
On the configuration screen, I enter my email address and my password.
Then, I checked “Start automatically on logon”.
Notifications History
Now, what if I am away from my computer while the notification pops up? To help with that, I found a “Recent Notifications” applet.
Here’s the commands to install it:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jconti/recent-notifications sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install indicator-notifications recent-notifications
Now, I can check to see what notifications were just displayed. Here’s what the notification looks like using it with the GMail Notifier:
New Google Chrome
While I was working through this, Google Chrome updated. The new version added some notification icons that look promising:
When you click on the Chrome-Notifications item, it brings up the Notification Center. Unfortunately, it always says that it is empty:
Conclusion
I still haven’t found the perfect solution. I’ll have to keep working on it. Do you have something that works for you? Please comment!