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https://github.com/dudik/herbe

Daemon-less notifications without D-Bus. Minimal and lightweight.
https://github.com/dudik/herbe

c daemon-less lightweight minimal notifications

Last synced: 5 days ago
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Daemon-less notifications without D-Bus. Minimal and lightweight.

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# 🌱 herbe

> Daemon-less notifications without D-Bus. Minimal and lightweight.





  




## Features

* Under 200 lines of code

* Doesn't run in the background, just displays the notification and exits

* No external dependencies except Xlib and Xft

* Configurable through `config.h` or Xresources ([using this patch](https://github.com/dudik/herbe/pull/11))

* [Actions support](#actions)

* Extensible through [patches](https://github.com/dudik/herbe/pulls?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Apr+label%3Apatch)



## Table of contents



* [Usage](#usage)

  * [Patches](#patches)

  * [Dismiss a notification](#dismiss-a-notification)

  * [Actions](#actions)

  * [Newlines](#newlines)

  * [Multiple notifications](#multiple-notifications)

  * [Notifications don't show up](#notifications-dont-show-up)

* [Installation](#installation)

  * [Packages](#packages)

  * [Dependencies](#dependencies)

  * [Build](#build)

* [Configuration](#configuration)

* [Contribute](#contribute)



## Usage



### Patches

[List of available patches](https://github.com/dudik/herbe/pulls?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Apr+label%3Apatch)



To create a new patch you'll have to open a pull request with your changes. Append `.diff` to the pull request URL to get a downloadable diff file. Don't forget to prefix the title with `patch:` and to apply the `patch` label to it. For inspiration, look at [my Xresources patch](https://github.com/dudik/herbe/pull/11). Thank you.



_Note: This patching method was heavily inspired by [dylan's sowm](https://github.com/dylanaraps/sowm)._



### Dismiss a notification

A notification can be dismissed either by clicking on it with `DISMISS_BUTTON` (set in config.h, defaults to left mouse button) or sending a `SIGUSR1` signal to it:

```shell

$ pkill -SIGUSR1 herbe

```

Dismissed notifications return exit code 2.



### Actions

Action is a piece of shell code that runs when a notification gets accepted. Accepting a notification is the same as dismissing it, but you have to use either `ACTION_BUTTON` (defaults to right mouse button) or the `SIGUSR2` signal.

An accepted notification always returns exit code 0. To specify an action:

```shell

$ herbe "Notification body" && echo "This is an action"

```

Where everything after `&&` is the action and will get executed after the notification gets accepted.



### Newlines

Every command line argument gets printed on a separate line by default e.g.:

```shell

$ herbe "First line" "Second line" "Third line" ...

```

You can also use `\n` e.g. in `bash`:

```shell

$ herbe $'First line\nSecond line\nThird line'

```

But by default `herbe` prints `\n` literally:

```shell

$ herbe "First line\nStill the first line"

```

Output of other programs will get printed correctly, just make sure to escape it (so you don't end up with every word on a separate line):

```shell

$ herbe "$(ps axch -o cmd:15,%cpu --sort=-%cpu | head)"

```



### Multiple notifications

Notifications are put in a queue and shown one after another in order of creation (first in, first out). They don't overlap and each one is shown for its entire duration.



### Notifications don't show up

Most likely a running notification got terminated forcefully (SIGKILL or any uncaught signal) which caused the semaphore not getting unlocked. First, kill any `herbe` instance that is stuck:

```shell

$ pkill -SIGKILL herbe

```

Then just call `herbe` without any arguments:

```shell

$ herbe

```

Notifications should now show up as expected.



Don't ever send any signals to `herbe` except these:

```shell

# same as pkill -SIGTERM herbe, terminates every running herbe process

$ pkill herbe



$ pkill -SIGUSR1 herbe

$ pkill -SIGUSR2 herbe

```

And you should be fine. That's all you really need to interact with `herbe`.



## Installation

### Packages

[![Packaging status](https://repology.org/badge/vertical-allrepos/herbe.svg)](https://repology.org/project/herbe/versions)



[OpenBSD patch](https://github.com/dudik/herbe/pull/4)



[FreeBSD patch](https://github.com/dudik/herbe/pull/16)



[Wayland port](https://github.com/muevoid/Wayherb) by [muevoid](https://github.com/muevoid)



**Only the [herbe-git AUR package](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/herbe-git/) is maintained by me.**



### Dependencies

* X11 (Xlib)

* Xft



The names of packages are different depending on which distribution you use.

For example, if you use [Void Linux](https://voidlinux.org/) you will have to install these dependencies:

```shell

sudo xbps-install base-devel libX11-devel libXft-devel

```



### Build

```shell

git clone https://github.com/dudik/herbe

cd herbe

sudo make install

```

`make install` requires root privileges because it copies the resulting binary to `/usr/local/bin`. This makes `herbe` accessible globally.



You can also use `make clean` to remove the binary from the build folder, `sudo make uninstall` to remove the binary from `/usr/local/bin` or just `make` to build the binary locally.



## Configuration

herbe is configured at compile-time by editing `config.h`. Every option should be self-explanatory. There is no `height` option because height is determined by font size and text padding.



[Xresources patch](https://github.com/dudik/herbe/pull/11)



## Contribute

If you want to report a bug or you have a feature request, feel free to [open an issue](https://github.com/dudik/herbe/issues).



## Projects with herbe integration

- [qutebrowser](https://qutebrowser.org/) supports showing web notifications via herbe, via the `content.notifications.presenter` setting.