add an "alert" alias, which can optionally be added after long running commands

[Dustin Kirkland ]

Binary package hint: bash

This bug is closely related, though slightly different from Bug #315932.

I recently posted:
http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2010/07/dear-command-line-please-ping-me-when.html

This post received some positive feedback in the comments and in IRC. A number of people have asked for this sort of functionality in the default Ubuntu .bashrc. I think this is a perfectly reasonable request. It doesn't get in the way, as current users must consciously append "; alert" onto their long running commands.

We can experiment with this as a proof-of-concept in Maverick, and perhaps look at better ways of doing this automagically by default (again, see the really interesting implementation in Bug #315932).

I have tested:
 a) when libnotify-bin is not installed -- command-not-found prints a useful error message
 b) when gnome-terminal is not installed -- icons aren't present; notify message pops up without icons; still functional
 c) over ssh -X -- works fine, assuming the client and host has the necessary packages to do libnotify stuff

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

For the moment, commited as:

  alias alert='notify-send --urgency=low -i "$([ $? = 0 ] && echo terminal || echo error)" "$(history|tail -n1|sed -e '\''s/^\s*[0-9]\+\s*//;s/[;&|]\s*alert$//'\'')"'

with generic icon 'terminal' so that it should be happier on K/Xubuntu with reduced icons sets and the lower priority to not be unnecessarily noisy. Long-term there are going to be better solutions(tm).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package bash - 4.1-2ubuntu4

---------------
bash (4.1-2ubuntu4) maverick; urgency=low

  * debian/skel.bashrc: add 'alert' alias, LP: #616028
 -- Dustin Kirkland <email address hidden> Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:35:08 -0400

[stenzn (stenzn)]

The default .bashrc should also have a comment added stating that the user has to install libnotify-bin, which is not installed by default in Maverick, to get the notify-send binary; otherwise the pop-up notification won't work.

Having libnotify-bin in the default install would take care of it too, but notify-send doesn't seem to be looked upon too highly by the folks in charge of notifications in Ubuntu anyway.

[Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland)]

The first time you try to use 'alert', command-not-found tells you
that you need to install libnotify-bin, right?

[yp (pir-yur)]

I definitely agree with nstenz that a comment specifying the 'libnotify-bin' pre-requisite. In my opinion, having such an alias and discovering that it does not work out-of-the-box after the long command has been completed without notification is annoying.

[Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland)]

Martin,

Do you think we could add libnotify-bin to the ubuntu desktop seeds, such that we have the notify-send command available for the "alert" alias, which is in the bash profile now?

Dustin

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Dustin,

done: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-core-dev/ubuntu-seeds/platform.oneiric/revision/1616

Thanks for landing this!

[Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland)]

Awesome, thanks, Martin!

[Guy Van Sanden (gvs)]

I was pointed here by a commenter on my blog, I've just written something similar but using Jabber for notifications to make it work on a number of servers instead of my desktop alone.

[Guy Van Sanden (gvs)]

And forgot the link: http://support.orions2.org/projects/cnotify

[Akbarkhon Variskhanov (kbar)]

Separating the first part of a list and the `alert` part with && (or any of the doubled control operators) will result the second character to be printed in the body of the message. Adding the asterisk after the [;&|] bracket expression fixes it.

alias alert='notify-send --urgency=low -i "$([ $? = 0 ] && echo terminal || echo error)" "$(history|tail -n1|sed -e '\''s/^\s*[0-9]\+\s*//;s/[;&|]*\s*alert$//'\'')"'

Bug #1953151