I have released jGrowl 1.1.1 this evening on the jQuery plugin page. This is a simple maintenance release fixing some minor issues that arose in 1.1.0. One new feature has been added, which is an optional setting to customize the content of the [ close all ] link for containers of multiple notifications. Additionally I have expanded the examples to include some more flashy skinning, and I have added a new example called jTweet. jTweet uses Twitter's javascript API to fetch twitter updates and generate several jGrowl notifications for them. The latest release can be downloaded here. All existing jGrowl users are encouraged to upgrade to this release.

I got back to Pittsburgh yesterday evening to find that jGrowl had received some loving over at WebAppers and DownloadSquad. I think this was because of the jQuery Twitter page. Anyhow, when people get interested in my work I get excited which in turn motivates me to work on things. I've dressed up some notifications with other styling here, including the use of Smoke.png from the MooTools Growl plugin and flora from jQuery UI.

I'm very happy to announce the immediate release of jGrowl 1.1.0.

This latest release features the ability to create multiple container instances for jGrowl, allowing a developer to raise and create various notifications in various location on the user's screen. This functionality is accessible via jGrowl() on any normal jQuery selector, note that the selector should belong to the container which holds notifications. Additionally the core method in previous releases, $.jGrowl() has been altered to create a default container. This should maintain backwards compatibility for users of previous releases and additionally provides a quick setup route for using jGrowl.

The demo file has been extensively updated to demonstrate the multi-container aspect of jGrowl, as well as to introduce several minor new features. It is highly recommend that you consult this demo file for further usage information. This release is still fully compatible with Internet Explorer 6.

Update 8/21/08: You can download jGrowl from it's jQuery plugin page at: http://plugins.jquery.com/project/jgrowl

I seem to be on a roll as of late with jGrowl... Today I spent some time working on supporting multiple instances. Hypothetically, someone may want to add more then one jGrowl container to their page, perhaps one in the top left corner and also one in bottom right. With version 1.0.4 this was not possible, jGrowl created a singular instance of itself and it could be docked in only one location. Not so anymore... In what will likely be the 1.1.0 release, slated sometime this weekend - you can have as many jGrowl containers and instances as you want and position them anywhere on the screen. The API has changed quite a bit due to this, but don't worry the old API is maintained through a wrapper method. I've expanded the demo file to demonstrate some of the new possibilities, and I'll update the projects and plugin page as soon as I have finalized testing. Stay tuned...

I've just release jGrowl 1.0.4, this is a maintenance release that introduces full support for Internet Explorer 6 and thus making jGrowl compatible with all major web browsers. The download is available off of my projects page or at the jQuery Plugin page. If you're a user of jGrowl I strongly recommend upgrading to this release.

jGrowl support for IE6 right now stinks. It stems from two issues, the first is IE6's lack of support for "element > element" selectors in stylesheets. The jGrowl stylesheet uses this quite extensively for aligning styles to the nodes that it generates. The second is IE6's lack of support for the fixed position style. I've included some sketchy CSS hacks for IE6 in the past, but I also confess I haven't paid much attention to IE6 since my earliest release.

Today I spent some time chewing away at the IE6 issues, and I'm happy to say that I believe I'll have a new release (1.0.4) to roll out tomorrow that fully supports IE6. I continue to use CSS hacks, but this time ones that are a little more friendly and don't require Quirks Mode. I've also separated other browser's styles out using the > in selectors. Style rules that need to be applied to IE and everything else no longer have > in them. Finally, there's an IE6 class that is added to the jGrowl container by the actual plugin when the user is viewing the page in IE6. Additionally I've added the zoom fix for the deault opacity styles since jGrowl, as far as IE is concerned, has no layout.

This release should roll out tomorrow, I'll post an update here and the jQuery plugin page will have the new release as well. For serious users of jGrowl, I highly recommend this release since it opens up compatibility to a wider range of web users.

I rolled out a new version of my jGrowl plugin today. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's a jQuery plugin that generates unobtrusive user-land messages. I first created it for PageSite and it has since worked its way into just about everything I do these days. This latest release focuses on customization and also includes several bug fixes for the previous release.

[ read more ]

Earlier today I release jGrowl 1.0.2 on the jQuery plugin page, and I also uploaded the release locally as well. This release is bundled into a zip file and contained within it is a demo page and an accompanying stylesheet. There are some pretty substantial changes in this release, including...

• Styling is now done externally, not inline.
• Messages can have an optional "theme" passed in, which defines secondary classes to be applied to messages. This allows for messages to be themed on a per-message basis.
• Animation speed can be customized.
• The global closer can be disabled.
• Added an optional callback to the global closer.
• Added an optional open and close callback to the individual notifications.
• Customize the life of a message on a per-message basis.
• jGrowl automatically starts itself up with the first message.
• When there are no messages jGrowl will automatically shut itself down.
• ...fixed various bugs in 1.0.1.

Overall this release is quite a bit better then the previous one. If you have any ideas for future features, or if you discover any bugs please feel free to contact me.

Update 8/21/08: You can download jGrowl from it's jQuery plugin page at: http://plugins.jquery.com/project/jgrowl

Back in November I wanted a mechanism to communicate messages after an ajax request to my PageSite users. I experimented with a number of things and initially had a terribly ugly manipulation of the green and red message boxes you'll see on this type from time to time. There were a couple of big problems though, first the code was originally written for Prototype so it sucked, and second it was not very portable. Ultimately I wanted something that looked good, was well written and could be reused in a number of different ways.

When PageSite was converted to using jQuery for all of its javascript I rehashed a lot of stuff. There was some old javascript code that had been floating around since 2004 when I first prototyped out PageSite 4.0's admin panel. To cut to the chase... I stumbled across Humanized Messages, which was close to what I wanted to do, but not yet there. This plugin got me to thinking, though, what I'd really like is something that looked like Growl. For those not on OS X, take a look at the website and you'll see that Growl is a system-wide notification system.

As a result, while Erich was out here visiting I fleshed out an initial concept. I called it jGrowl, spinning off of the OS X solution. It's pretty simple to use out of the box:

Today I sat down and cleaned up some of the plugin, namely I removed a dependency on the metadata plugin in favor of $.fn.data() and I also namespaced all of the events, which should allow you to attach other events to the jGrowl nodes and deal with them without jGrowl unbinding them on you.

The plugin still needs some work, I'm not sure how much I like styling it with javascript - at the same rate, I like the idea of styling different notifications differently as well. I'd also like to see some callback options, the animations customizable and I'd like to potentially add some internal sorting using the "header" option. These things, though, will come in time - for now I just want to get the plugin out so I can get some feedback.

Update 8/21/08: You can download jGrowl from it's jQuery plugin page at: http://plugins.jquery.com/project/jgrowl