distributednotifications

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Interact with NSDistributedNotificationCenter There are many notifications posted by parts of OS X, and third party apps, which may be interesting to react to using this module.
You can discover the notifications that are being posted on your system with some code like this:
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foo = hs.distributednotifications.new(function(name, object, userInfo) print(string.format("name: %s\nobject: %s\nuserInfo: %s\n", name, object, hs.inspect(userInfo))) end)
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foo:start()
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Note that distributed notifications are expensive - they involve lots of IPC. Also note that they are not guaranteed to be delivered, particularly if the system is very busy.
API Overview
Functions - API calls offered directly by the extension
​post​
Constructors - API calls which return an object, typically one that offers API methods
​new​
Methods - API calls which can only be made on an object returned by a constructor
​start​
​stop​
API Documentation
Functions
​post​
Signature
hs.distributednotifications.post(name[, sender[, userInfo]])
Type
Function
Description
Sends a distributed notification
Parameters
name - A string containing the name of the notification
sender - An optional string containing the name of the sender of the notification (in the form com.domain.application.foo). Defaults to nil.
userInfo - An optional table containing additional information to post with the notification. Defaults to nil.
Constructors
​new​
Signature
hs.distributednotifications.new(callback[, name[, object]]) -> object
Type
Constructor
Description
Creates a new NSDistributedNotificationCenter watcher
Parameters
callback - A function to be called when a matching notification arrives. The function should accept one argument:
notificationName - A string containing the name of the notification
name - An optional string containing the name of notifications to watch for. A value of nil will cause all notifications to be watched on macOS versions earlier than Catalina. Defaults to nil.
object - An optional string containing the name of sending objects to watch for. A value of nil will cause all sending objects to be watched. Defaults to nil.
Returns
An hs.distributednotifications object
Notes
On Catalina and above, it is no longer possible to observe all notifications - the name parameter is effectively now required. See https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/10/04/nsdistributednotificationcenter-no-longer-supports-nil-names
Methods
​start​
Signature
hs.distributednotifications:start() -> object
Type
Method
Description
Starts a NSDistributedNotificationCenter watcher
Parameters
None
Returns
The hs.distributednotifications object
​stop​
Signature
hs.distributednotifications:stop() -> object
Type
Method
Description
Stops a NSDistributedNotificationCenter watcher
Parameters
None
Returns
The hs.distributednotifications object