Notifications API

Syntax#

• Notification.requestPermission(callback)
• Notification.requestPermission().then(callback, rejectFunc)
• new Notification(title, options)
• notification.close()

Remarks#

The Notifications API was designed to allow browser access to notifying the client.

Support by browsers might be limited. Also support by the operating system may be limited.

The following table gives an overview of the earliest browser versions that provide support for notifications.

Requesting Permission to send notifications

We use Notification.requestPermission to ask the user if he/she wants to receive notifications from our website.

Notification.requestPermission(function() {
    if (Notification.permission === 'granted') {
        // user approved.
        // use of new Notification(...) syntax will now be successful
    } else if (Notification.permission === 'denied') {
        // user denied.
    } else { // Notification.permission === 'default'
        // user didn’t make a decision.
        // You can’t send notifications until they grant permission.
    }
});

Since Firefox 47 The .requestPermission method can also return a promise when handling the user’s decision for granting permission

Notification.requestPermission().then(function(permission) {
    if (!('permission' in Notification)) {
        Notification.permission = permission;
    }
    // you got permission !
    }, function(rejection) {
    // handle rejection here.
    }
);

Sending Notifications

After the user has approved a request for permission to send notifications, we can send a simple notification that says Hello to the user:

new Notification('Hello', { body: 'Hello, world!', icon: 'url to an .ico image' });

This will send a notification like this:

Hello

Hello, world!

Closing a notification

You can close a notification by using the .close() method.

let notification = new Notification(title, options);
// do some work, then close the notification
notification.close()

You can utilize the setTimeout function to auto-close the notification sometime in the future.

let notification = new Notification(title, options);
setTimeout(() => {
    notification.close()
}, 4000);

The above code will spawn a notification and close it after 4 seconds.

Notification events

The Notification API specifications support 2 events that can be fired by a Notification.

1. The click event.

This event will run when you click on the notification body (excluding the closing X and the Notifications configuration button).

Example:

notification.onclick = function(event) {
    console.debug("you click me and this is my event object: ", event);
}

2. The error event

The notification will fire this event whenever something wrong will happen, like being unable to display

notification.onerror = function(event) {
    console.debug("There was an error: ", event);
}