The pop-up notification (or toast, passive pop-up, snackbar, desktop notification, notification bubble, or simply notification) is a

graphical control element A graphical widget (also graphical control element or control) in a graphical user interface is an element of interaction, such as a button or a scroll bar. Controls are software components that a computer user interacts with through dir ...

that communicates certain events to the user without forcing them to react to this notification immediately, unlike conventional pop-up windows. Desktop notifications usually disappear automatically after a short amount of time. Often their content is then stored in some widget that allows the users to access past notifications at a more convenient time. On mobile devices, a push notification

system A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and express ...

is typically used.

Support on different systems

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was offici ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

introduced balloon help-like passive pop-up notifications, tied to the notification area of the

task bar A taskbar is an element of a graphical user interface which has various purposes. It typically shows which programs are currently running. The specific design and layout of the taskbar varies between individual operating systems, but generally a ...

. Notifications get queued when user is away or screensaver is running, and get shown when the user resumes activity. They remain on screen for nine seconds while fading out if the user appears to ignore them. Microsoft also adopted similar notifications for its other software such as

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design lan ...

using the Microsoft Push Notification Service,

Internet Explorer 7 Windows Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) (codenamed Rincon) is a web browser for Windows. It has been retired on all Windows versions except Windows Embedded Compact 2013. It was released by Microsoft on October 18, 2006, as the seventh version of Inte ...

and later,

Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 software suites. Though primarily an email client, Outlook also includes such functions as Calen ...

Microsoft Security Essentials Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is an antivirus software (AV) product that provides protection against different types of malicious software, such as computer viruses, spyware, rootkits, and Trojan horses. Prior to version 4.5, MSE ran on , ...

, as well as Windows 8 and

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on Ju ...

using the

Windows Notification Service Windows Push Notification Service (commonly referred to as Windows Notification Service or WNS) is a notification service developed by Microsoft for all devices running Microsoft Windows platforms. It allows for developers to send push data ( ...

Desktop notifications are a proposed standard for freedesktop.org, but all the major desktop environments running on the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...

already support this standard, making them typically available on

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

and other

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

systems. Google adopted the concepts of

notification drawer Notification may refer to: * Notification (Holy See), an announcement by a department of the Roman Curia *Casualty notification, the process of notifying relatives of people who have been killed or seriously injured *Death notification, the proce ...

and toast popup messages for user notifications as basic components of its

Android operating system Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android is developed by a consortium of d ...

. As of 10.8 Mountain Lion,

OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

provides desktop notifications via

Notification Center Notification Center is a feature in iOS and macOS that provides an overview of alerts from applications. It displays notifications until the user completes an associated action, rather than requiring instant resolution. Users may choose what ...

. Previous versions of OS X have no built-in desktop notification feature; however, Growl is a popular application that provides similar functionality and enjoys broad support from third-party software. iOS also includes Notification Center as of iOS 5.

Capabilities

While passive pop-ups do not require any user interaction, some implementations still provide a way for the user to optionally interact with the pop-up. This is called ''actions''. For the Freedesktop specification, this is an optional feature that clients cannot rely on, and its use is discouraged by some design guidelines. Android adds the ability to provide actions with Jelly Bean.

In the Material Design language

Google's Material Design introduced the term ''snackbar'' to refer to a user-interface element displaying a temporary, closable notification: ''Snackbars inform users of a process that an app has performed or will perform. They appear temporarily, towards the bottom of the screen. They shouldn’t interrupt the user experience, and they don’t require user input to disappear.''

External links

Ubuntu's NotifyOSD notification implementation

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=February 2019 Graphical control elements