Introducing Yip: A Unified Notification System for the Web

http://abcdefu.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/introducing-yip-an-unified-notification-system-for-the-web/

by abi • 17 years ago

47 31 17 years ago

abcdefu.wordpress.com

jlc• 17 years ago

Shouldn't that read, "A Nunified?"

raffi2• 17 years ago

Yes. According to http://www.polishmywriting.com (which is mine):

Try: "A Unified" A and an are indefinite articles. An indefinite article is an adjective that says you want any of some noun. For example "I want a pony" means I want any pony.

You select a or an based on the sound of the first letter of the following word.

If the first word starts with a vowel sound you use an. If the first word has a consonant sound use a.

abi6• 17 years ago

Thanks for pointing that out guys. I've changed the title.

P.S. It's sad that we're discussing this rather than Yip.

doodyhead• 17 years ago

It sounds good, but I don't see why he needs to curse in his introduction. I almost stopped reading. It's unprofessional and unnecessary.

michaelawill• 17 years ago

F that!

sho3• 17 years ago

Are you fucking kidding me? He's the person who has spent months of his life coming up with his free and open source software, then just giving it away. And who on earth says "curse"? Are you like 70 years old?

"Unprofessional"? What the hell are you talking about? It's free software you nong, that's F.L.O.S.S. and until you release your own blockbuster "professional" library, you can put a sock in it.

spon• 17 years ago

Well said. Let's not live in our cubicles any longer than we have to.

I love the fact that this guy feels there is a huge gaping hole out there, and that he intensely wants to do something about it. For me, that counts for more than fitting in as a company man.

davidw• 17 years ago

It's just gratuitous. It doesn't add anything. I don't have anything against profanity, but it doesn't really work well in that introductory phrase. With all the problems in the world, "notifications for web apps" is just not enough on my list for the f-bomb. Also, good writers can find plenty of ways to evoke emotion and passion without resorting to swear words.

> "Unprofessional"? What the hell are you talking about? It's free software you nong,

Plenty of free software is very professional. I should hope so, I've worked on a variety of open source projects in a professional capacity.

chanux2• 17 years ago

It's people Like you who make me feel that HNers are FOSS haters. You too should exist to keep the balance, anyway.

jjs• 17 years ago

> It sounds good, but I don't see why he needs to curse in his introduction. I almost stopped reading. It's unprofessional and unnecessary.

Unprofessional and unnecessary? May I remind you, sir, that your username is "doodyhead"!

abi6• 17 years ago

I like to curse. But I'm sorry if it offended you. I have removed it from the post. (note to self: don't be so fucking immature next time around).

chanux2• 17 years ago

Curse. And Don't give a shit at what others say.

aristus• 17 years ago

This is impressive, but how will this not be abused for spam? Fluid's window.fluid.addDockMenuItem() is alarming, but even just growl support for arbitrary sites will get spammed to death pretty quickly... it's just a new species of popup.

abi6• 17 years ago

For the Fluid API, Yip only supports window.fluid.showGrowlNotification() so you don't have to worry about dock menu items.

This is a very preliminary release. Rate-limiting messages from a single website is the crucial first step in preventing message spam (and this will likely be implemented pretty soon). As for more advanced "spam prevention", check out the discussion I had with one of the commenters on my post.[1]

I think a beter solution can be found for notifications than for the existing problem with window.alert which can not only be spammed incessantly but also completely freeze up your browser.

[1] http://abcdefu.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/introducing-yip-an-u...

kyro• 17 years ago

I'm going to go ahead and give you my feedback, since everything else here is nonsense crap.

I think it's a great idea. I've definitely wanted something of this sort for a while now. A notification system that alerts me when someone has written on my facebook wall, messaged me on meebo, replied to my HN comment/submission, posted a blog post, etc - a consolidated system. You should start integrating it with more services and give users the option the to pick and choose which ones they want to use your service for. I'm not quite sure how feasible that is from a technical standpoint, but from a consumer's point of view, that flexibility to hook my various services into a consolidated notification system would be awesome.

Good start.

jodrellblank• 17 years ago

A notification system that alerts me when someone has written on my facebook wall, messaged me on meebo, replied to my HN comment/submission, posted a blog post, etc - a consolidated system.

Did you watch the Google Wave introductory video?

alexandros• 17 years ago

Wave requires that the services integrate Wave to begin with. This is a very high barrier. Building a notification service that binds to the various APIS is much more feasible in the near-term, regardless of the fact that the human effort needed makes it problematic to scale to a very large number of services.

abi6• 17 years ago

That's similar to what I had in mind. In order for it to become reality, as you point out, more services need to support it (right now, we just have to wait for the website owner to add support but soon, there'll be a way for users to add support for websites). Another important component is a log that persistently stores all the notifications you receive so that you can go back and check out all your history.

You'll like the next version. :)

blhack2• 17 years ago

Groaaaann....

Please tell me that this sort of thing is not going to become the norm on websites...

This is the reason that I migrated away from facebook.

Text.

It works.

abi6• 17 years ago

Facebook has browser/Growl notifications? Or do you mean their email notifications?

Of course, there will always be ways to turn it off or turn it on only for particular sites. See http://abcdefu.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/introducing-yip-an-u...

blhack2• 17 years ago

they have something that pops up at the bottom of your screen to tell you that something has happened on the page.

It only works when you actually AT facebook.

Having that sort of "functionality" follow me around sounds like some sort of hellish nightmare.

codahale• 17 years ago

No.

It integrates with a system (GrowlHelper.app) which runs with all your permissions and hasn't received any security scrutiny and was designed to take input from a few, trusted sources. What could possibly go wrong?

Adelaide• 17 years ago

Hey, am I wrong or did merely visiting this site try to install a Browser Helper Object? Not cool.

abi6• 17 years ago

Yes, you are wrong. It will install something (with your permission) if you click the "Download" link.

dflock• 17 years ago

If you're using linux, then Specto does this for anything at all, including websites:

http://specto.sourceforge.net/

zmimon• 17 years ago

Maybe I'm just jaded but all these things just seems like tired old rehashes of the same ideas dressed up with new names to try and make them sound cool.

If you send me an email, I will get a notification popup because my email notifier does it. If you send me an instant message notification I will also get a small notification popup because I am running an IM client. If there is a way Yip works better than those then I'm struggling to think of it. I really don't need more ways to receive small notification popups. We have XMPP, we have SMTP. Stop reinventing wheels.

Introducing Yip: A Unified Notification System for the Web

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