My last few picks for Virgin Install have been things that lots of Mac users know about, but this one is a hidden gem (which we have covered before). Growl, much like Quicksilver, takes a bit of effort to get your mind around, but once you get it you will wonder how you lived without it.What is Growl? It is a way for various applications to give you a graphical notification that certain things have happened. There are a variety of addons that let iTunes and Applescript talk to Growl, amongst other apps, so you can get most applications to use it.
How do I use it? Growl pops up a little window and tells me who has logged onto IM, and it tells me the currently playing track in iTunes. Small things to be sure, but boy are they handy.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-29-2005 @ 5:35AM
Andrew Burke said...
I hope you allow plugs when they're relevant. As a recent switcher I've put together a site of the apps that I've tried and liked since changing to the Mac six months ago.
It's at http://andrewsmactips.cjb.cc/
Thanks,
Andy
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6-29-2005 @ 5:40AM
Silky Slim said...
this "growl" is a terrible idea. basically, it pops up a little window after every insignificant system event, and you have to click it to make it go away. if i wanted an operating system that bothers me all the time for no reason, i'd use windows xp.
now, every time i log on to an irc server, i have to click on 7-8 little windows with unintelligible messages to make them go away. thanks, growl!
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6-29-2005 @ 6:10AM
David Werjefelt said...
Silky, turn this notificaiton of. Decide what and how to be notified.
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6-29-2005 @ 6:24AM
Sillium said...
Silky, you can make those notifications go away automatically after a defined amount of time. And of course you can set rules for every single app and allow/deny notification for its events. You just have to configure Growl for your needs as with every useful app.
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6-29-2005 @ 9:03AM
Michael Katz said...
I love growl but ever since tiger, I can't get the mail plugin to work at all. Terrific program, but each update doesn't make it so I can have my mail plugin work.
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6-29-2005 @ 10:55AM
Chris said...
Michael: Try the beta, see if it works: http://growl.info/beta
Remove the previous mail plugin before installing the new one.
Silky, it's not for every little thing. It's for what *you* decide is important. I personally don't like knowing when people sign on and off in Adium, but I do like seeing a notification with the contents of a new im, if Adium is in the background. I also like knowing when a upload is done ftping up, but not down. That's the way we set this system up, to allow you to choose what you do and do not get notified about, instead of being notified about everything like other systems.
If you are getting 7-8 notifications when getting on irc, maybe you should look into minimizing what you are allowing to actually notify. Growl is very flexible in this, it gives the user control, and you have the power to enable and disable things at will.
Please look at the applications tab. Now look at it harder, and look at the system we've setup to allow for control. It's not as pretty as we would like, but it's going to get there.
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6-29-2005 @ 11:03AM
Kellsworth said...
Does anybody think Growl is better/worse than Quicksilver, or is it somethign that should be used in conjuction with it? I wanna know if I should bother with the download because i'm pretty happy with Quicksilver...
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6-29-2005 @ 11:17AM
Scott McNulty said...
Kellsworth, Growl is definitely in addtion to Quicksilver. They both do very different things. Quicksilver lets you do things to the system, while Growl notifies you of them.
So, for example, with Quicksilver you can go to the next track in iTunes, and Growl can then display what is currently playing (and yes I know Quicksilver can do this as well, but I thought this would be a good example anyway).
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6-29-2005 @ 2:02PM
Sillium said...
@Michael:
You could also try the Growl Mail Rule AppleScript by Fraser Speirs:
http://speirs.org/hacks/
With a Mail rule invoking this script, you can even specify more details about which mails should be considered and which not.
Thanks Fraser!
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6-29-2005 @ 2:40PM
Silky Slim said...
first of all, didn't mean to offend anyone. just blew off some steam, sorry about that.
i never installed growl; the graphical similarity made me think growl was installed along with colloquy, but it seems colloquy itself was doing it. i already e-mailed the developer and got a reply with an explanation about how to turn the notifications off.
as for growl, it's definitely not for me and i wouldn't dream of installing it...
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