Notification Types

Notifications can optionally have a type indicator. Although neither client or nor server must support this, some may choose to. Those servers implementing notification types may use them to intelligently display the notification in a certain way, or group notifications of similar types.

Notification types are in class.specific form. class specifies the generic type of notification, and specific specifies the more specific type of notification.

If a specific type of notification does not exist for your notification, but the generic kind does, a notification of type class is acceptable.

Third parties, when defining their own notification types, should discuss the possibility of standardizing on the hint with other parties, preferably in a place such as the xdg mailing list at freedesktop.org. If it warrants a standard, it will be added to the table above. If no consensus is reached, the notification type should be in the form of "x-vendor.class.name."

The following table lists standard notifications as defined by this spec. More will be added in time.

Table 2. Notification Types

TypeDescription
"device" A generic device-related notification that doesn't fit into any other category.
"device.added"A device, such as a USB device, was added to the system.
"device.error"A device had some kind of error.
"device.removed" A device, such as a USB device, was removed from the system.
"email" A generic e-mail-related notification that doesn't fit into any other category.
"email.arrived"A new e-mail notification.
"email.bounced"A notification stating that an e-mail has bounced.
"im" A generic instant message-related notification that doesn't fit into any other category.
"im.error"An instant message error notification.
"im.received"A received instant message notification.
"network" A generic network notification that doesn't fit into any other category.
"network.connected" A network connection notification, such as successful sign-on to a network service. This should not be confused with device.added for new network devices.
"network.disconnected" A network disconnected notification. This should not be confused with device.removed for disconnected network devices.
"network.error" A network-related or connection-related error.
"presence" A generic presence change notification that doesn't fit into any other category, such as going away or idle.
"presence.offline"An offline presence change notification.
"presence.online"An online presence change notification.
"transfer" A generic file transfer or download notification that doesn't fit into any other category.
"transfer.complete"A file transfer or download complete notification.
"transfer.error"A file transfer or download error.