> Without Growl I do not know that we would have any sort of decent notification system in OS X<p>They are right to say this, as the current Notifications system in OS X is ripped nearly pixel-for-pixel from Growl's implementation a decade ago. Like Spaces, Quicksilver, Cover Flow and others, Growl paved the way for a lot of the usability enhancements OS X gobbled up in recent years.<p>Apple folks: take note. These are real, material examples of the benefit brought by developers being on your side. Shun them as you have in recent years and you might find another OS starts to benefit from their weekend projects and innovative ideas.
Pour one out for a fondly remembered enhancement to Mac OS X.<p>In a somewhat similar nostalgic vein, I remember haxies…<p><a href="https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Haxie" rel="nofollow">https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Haxie</a><p>…and as linked in the blog post, Adium.<p><a href="https://adium.im" rel="nofollow">https://adium.im</a><p>Seemingly indispensable apps/applets/desk accessories that were either made unworkable by security changes, Sherlocking, or just the changing services we use. <i>(Just look at those Adium services, and wistfully remember when XMPP was everywhere.)</i>
Growl was one of the projects that made me fall in love with the Mac. The themes, the ability to script to it in the PWA precursors I used to build (SSBs), and the easy way to plug it into your own apps. It was a core part of what made Mac apps in the Delicious Generation so special and so much better than apps on any other OS. I still think apps of that vintage are the height of good desktop application development.<p>When Growl moved to the Mac App Store, the writing was on the wall. I was so happy the team had a way to support themselves but the changes being made in Mac OS X (then known as OS X), even before Notification Center, definitely made stuff harder. After Notification Center and its adoption/similarity, and with the way macOS continued to restrict kernel extensions/modifications/plugins, it stopped being used as much by others. It ended up becoming difficult to install/run, and I gave up a few years ago, even though that meant some of my custom tools would no longer work the same way.<p>Huge kudos to the developers and the community. Seventeen years is a hell of a run.
Super innovative, internet-organized, open source project ahead of its time. I have a special place in my heart for it, too — back when I first started working for myself, and at home, in ‘06-07, I would run Twitteriffic with every incoming tweet posting to Growl. The frequency was low enough that this was not a distraction and every tweet was meaningful. At that time, pretty much all of my followed accounts were also indie, work-at-home Mac devs, and it was a virtual water cooler of sorts. Really was a huge part of me adjusting to working alone and working at home, but still feeling part of a group as the notifications faded by...
Oh, I remember this thing. It felt like an essential part of the system before native notifications were introduced, and then was promptly forgotten. Literally every single app that had notifications used it — with the notable exception of Apple's own ones. Coming from Windows, where every app implemented its own notifications that looked inconsistent and overlapped each other, this was a night and day difference.
Reminds me of the story of a guy who gets flown out to meet with Microsoft about an acquisition for his extremely useful Windows program, but they never follow up. Instead, they just rip-off his idea verbatim and integrate it into the OS.
I loved growl. There was an iOS app called Prowl that used the growl notification system that I used in a past life to alert me if things in production were weird without me manually checking all the time. Good memories. Thank you Growl!
> However at WWDC in 2014 everyone on the team saw the writing on the wall. This was my only WWDC. This is the WWDC where Notification Center was announced.<p>Notification Center was an OS X Mountain Lion feature, wasn't it? That came out in 2012…
I'm still salty that the macOS Notification Center was introduced as a "for-pay" API as it initially worked only on AppStore apps and then on signed apps.<p>I'm still not sure if it works on unsigned apps, but considering all apps must be notarized on macOS, it doesn't really matter anymore.
I guess I should think about finally switching Quicksilver to use native notifications for whatever iTunes is playing.<p>Or just leave it until I get a new Mac with an OS that Growl won't run on. It works fine and I have better things to do.<p>Thanks for all the unobtrusive notifications that I was able to customize, Mr. The Tick. Spoon!
Impossible to understate how cool and innovative Growl was many years ago before anyone knew what a notification system was. It was a killer app for me back when all we really had was terminal bells or Windows system tray bubbles.
When I first installed Growl I remember literally thinking "wow, this is really cool!"<p>... Being a tech geek means my nostalgia memories are 'weird' by normal standards.<p>Super happy now thinking about the time I first installed Growl
I have used Growl for a very long time, and went to lengths to keep it as part of my environment. I'm surprised they held on for as long as they did as it seemed the exact thing that Apple has been trying to torpedo for the last decade, "consistent UI" and all.
“Growl” is the kind of thing the old Apple used to create: not <i>just</i> solving a problem but doing it well, handling lots of different cases and being cool on top of it all.<p>Meanwhile, today’s Apple gives us something that doesn’t even show you where notification buttons are.
I still use HardwareGrowler all the time with Growl, and it is super useful for unobtrusive notifications about usb connects, IP address changes, battery levels, etc.<p>Here's to hoping for a future for HardwareGrowler still.
I’m kinda surprised they kept it going this long, given that pretty much everything moved to Apple’s Notification Center almost immediately after it was released.
> <i>For developers we recommend transitioning away from Growl at this point.</i><p>Couldn’t someone write a Growl-compatible layer which is a shim to Apple’s Notification Center?
Big props to Growl. I remember it being all the rage in terminal emulators back in the day.<p>Thanks for all the work that was done - it was well appreciated.
I can say that Growl and desktop notifications are the very first thing I disable.<p>Not once on 20 years of computing did I ever think: “I want applications to interrupt what I’m doing and steal my limited ADHD focus because they’re lonely and need attention”.
This illustrates how in proprietary and centrally-developed software, once the owner decides to integrate or replace something, all alternatives are eliminated, usually quickly, in this case in several years.<p>Compare with GNU/POSIX/Linux, where you can still make a comfortable environment for yourself without Wayland or systemd or whatever it is you don't like, and replacements still continue to be maintained and developed.