Push.js – A minimalist JavaScript library for desktop notifications | Hacker News Reader

Push.js – A minimalist JavaScript library for desktop notifications

github.com

122 pointsNickersoft38 comments

I hate to be pedantic but these are not push notifications. Those are the ones that can be sent even if the webapp is closed, for example, this Chrome demo: https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/getting-start...

unsure here but isnt it the same but in this case it is just not yet using a service worker to listen for new push notifications ?

WebPush is (going to be) an IETF standard: https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/webpush/documents/

Yikes, that really seems like abuse of HTTP/2 semantics to me. My understanding has always been that server push in HTTP/2 is only intended to prime the client cache for requests you know they're about to (or likely to) make. [1]

> Pushed responses are always associated with an explicit request from the client.

I'd rather see additional frame types defined that allow for bidirectional communication (i.e. websockets 2.0) than overriding and conflating the PUSH_PROMISE frame type.

[1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7540#section-8.2

Ok we replaced 'push' with 'desktop' which is what the Github page says.

Sort of. There's nothing stopping you from using script inside a Service Worker to send those notifications. Calling them push notification is troublesome as the Web Push API and Notification API are actually two entirely separate things.

I've built a plug & play app for Web Push Notifications. It comes with an analytics dashboard and an interface for users to manage their subscription. If anyone is interested to try it, you can see the demo at https://www.pushroll.com

I think you may be confusing push notifications with browser notifications?

Any reason why you couldn't instead have an optional drop-in Shim that allows developers to use the current/modern HTML5 Notifications API syntax, where the shim simply adds supports to older/other browsers? I hate introducing additional APIs if it's not necessary. In the future when the browsers you care about support the Notifications API it's easiest to simply remove the shim.

Quick apology for confusing the terms "push notification" and "desktop notification". I forgot "push" usually refers to sites that use service workers to send notifications to the desktop regardless of whether the browser window is open. This library requires the window remain open for the notification to be shown.

In the web app I work on, we have a toast component that we use to show the user status messages. It's usually used for showing error messages. I've been aware of desktop notifications being around or a couple years now, but I haven't used em.

What guidelines or general rule of thumb do you use when deciding if something is worth a notification?

I just downloaded this and made a 1-liner to try it out. Really cool. Worked just fine in FF. Not sure why it didn't do anything in Chrome on Mac.

> setInterval(function() { Push.create('Hi') }, 2000);

Usually chrome requires a service worker for notifications and I don't see one in this library. Anybody else get this working with chrome?

I too had this issue. I appears that notifications don't show in full screen mode. When I returned Chrome to a windowed app on my Mac the notifications appeared.

I think I ran into the issue before as well.. however, I think that's an issue with how Chrome handles its notifications. I don't think there's anything in the library that could cause this behavior. A known issue is that the library is currently broken in Safari. I will investigate why when I have some free time.

I'm a little bit new to the desktop notifications game, but it would be cool to know how this compares/relates to something like roost

Nice project, I liked the fact that it has a fallback to older browser versions, will test it later.

Is there a similar library for mobile?

Does mobile have a comparable feature? Native Push Notifications are an entirely different beast; afaik, there is no way to have browser type notifications like this.

Chrome on Android does support push notifications from the browser. Facebook makes use of this and you can actually get push notifications from Facebook without using their app. Facebook requests in the Chrome browser to use notifications and then you can receive them without even having the browser app open.

For push notifications, yes, but these are "browser / desktop" notifications, which only show up while the application is running. It's possible this works on mobile with the app running in the background, but I haven't seen it before.

No demo?

Sorry, I meant to mention the demo is at http://nickersoft.github.io/push.js/demo.html.

Not working on Safari.

Does not seem to work locally using Chrome 50.0.2661.102 (64-bit) either. Not a good sign.

> eighter

Niner one niner five copy that.

I type good.

You should write a JavaScript library for typing!

I just tested on Chrome 50.0.2661.102 (64-bit) on OSX 10.11.4 and it seems to work. What OS are you running? Did it ask you permission to show notifications? Are there any errors in the developer console?

This is a known issue. The underlying code works, but the library doesn't for some reason. Will investigate when I have the time.

super nifty and really useful, does it require https ?

Why would it require HTTPS? This is a javascript library that allows you to hook into a native browser function (showing desktop notifications). There are no web services involved.

Presumably grandparent post was paranoid that http websites have some lower status in terms of being able to send notifications. Not a likely scenario, but not an entirely unreasonable question.

The browser push APIs do require HTTPS, since browsers refuse to install service workers otherwise (which is required for them to function...). That said, the demo is hosted over plain HTTP, and seems to work for me (Chrome 50, Linux).

These are not actual "push" notifications, they are desktop notifications. Different functionality, and no service workers.

https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2015/03/push-notif...

Why does this require HTTPS? How do I work around this during development? Service workers require secure origins to ensure that the service worker script is from the intended origin and hasn’t come about from a man-in-the-middle attack. Currently, that means using HTTPS on live sites, though localhost will work during development.

So, I think there is some misunderstanding here. What you've linked here are Push notifications, which yes, go through GCM and do require web service calls. This JS library is doing Desktop notifications, which afaik, are an entirely different thing, and are strictly limited to "within the context of the active page."

To answer the "how do I work around this during development": non-HTTPS is permitted on localhost (this is at least the case in Chrome). The spec also hints at this (https://w3c.github.io/push-api/#security-and-privacy-conside...). But, as has already been mentioned, this is about desktop notifications and not web push.

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