On Sep 13, 2009, at 9:51 AM, Aryeh Gregor wrote:
As far as I know, web apps have no way to get the user's attention if they aren't using the web app, do they?
GMail 'blinks' by alternating the window title between two states, which can be effective even if the animation in the window content isn't visible; but it's not that great a solution.
Audio notifications are also possible. In HTML5 they won't even require a plugin :p
I'd imagine popping up a window isn't reliable -- it might be stopped by a popup blocker, or the user might have all new windows going to tabs, or something like that. (Is there a new API for that, perhaps?)
Yes, there is a notification API under review that tells the browser to pop up some kind of platform-specific notifier UI, like a task-tray bubble on Windows or a Growl-like floater on Mac OS. I haven't been paying close attention but I think a WebKit implementation is in progress.
—Jens
