Simple custom notifications for Meteor app.

meteor-notifications package makes adding user notifications to a Meteor app a joy.

It's also simply customizable. There are no templates provided (programmers are encouraged to provide their own) but template handlers are there for programmer's convenience.

There are two kinds of notifications you can use:

• Distributed - displayed to other users
• Local - displayed to currently logged user

meteor-notifications provides two template handlers you can use out of the box: Notifications and NotificationsItem. You can use them to handle your own custom templates (as long as you name them respectively).

There are also global template handlers which can be used in any other template within app: Notifications and NotificationsItem.

Install using Meteor:

meteor add miro:notifications

Define your custom templates like these (note how they're named!):

Taken from the Notifications chapter of Discover Meteor Book

<template name="Notifications">
	<a href="#" class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown">
	{{#if notificationCount}}
		{{title}}<span class="badge badge-inverse">{{notificationCount}}</span><b class="caret"></b>
	{{else}}
		No {{title}}
	{{/if}}
	</a>
	{{#if notificationCount}}
		<ul class="notification dropdown-menu">
		{{#each notifications}}
			{{> NotificationsItem}}
		{{/each}}
		</ul>
	{{/if}}
</template>

<template name="NotificationsItem">
	<li>
		<a href="#" alt="{{type}}">
			<strong>{{title}}</strong> {{text}}
		</a>
	</li>
</template>

Or, in case of using global template handlers with custom templates:

<template name="myCustomTemplate">
	<a href="#" class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown">
	{{#if Notifications.notificationCount}}
		{{Notifications.title}}<span class="badge badge-inverse">{{Notifications.notificationCount}}</span><b class="caret"></b>
	{{else}}
		No {{Notifications.title}}
	{{/if}}
	</a>
	{{#if Notifications.notificationCount}}
		<ul class="notification dropdown-menu">
		{{#each Notifications.notifications}}
			{{> myCustomTemplateItem}}
		{{/each}}
		</ul>
	{{/if}}
</template>

<template name="myCustomTemplateItem">
	<li>
		<a href="#" alt="{{type}}">
			<strong>{{NotificationsItem.title}}</strong> {{NotificationsItem.text}}
		</a>
	</li>
</template>

meteor-notifications provides a few API methods:

Set options for Notifications

• options An options object; currently there's only one optional parameter supported:
• showHandler( notification, callback ) - a method to handle actual displaying with a callback method that can be used to manipulate the notification (provided as argument to the method). For example, a notification can be marked as read right after displaying.

NOTE: If custom templates are NOT defined by the user, this method will be used for 'distributed' notifications as well.

If custom method is not set up, the provided handler will write notifications to the console.

Create 'distributed' Notifications

If custom templates are defined, this will cause notification to be displayed automatically - there's no need to call show() method! (It uses showHandler to display notifications).

• userId User ID of the user for whom the notification is for.
• content A user-defined content object; for default showHandler method it's: {title: <string>, text: <string>}
• type A notification type styling (in case where custom showHandler is used); Can be one of [info|warning|error|danger|success]; default is info (error and danger are synonyms for compatibility with Bootstrap).

Show 'local' Notifications

This is used internally in case the custom templates are not defined! (It uses showHandler to display notifications).

• notification A user-defined notification object; for default showHandler method it's: {type: <string>, content: {title: <string>, text: <string>}}
• callback A callback method that can be used to manipulate the notification (provided as argument to the method). For example, a notification can be marked as read right after displaying.

Mark 'distributed' Notifications as read

• notificationId ID of the notification that should be marked as read.

Example is using bootstrapGrowl jQuery plugin

var defaults = {
		ele            : 'body',  // which element to append to
		type           : 'info',  // ('success', 'info', 'warning', 'danger')
		offset         : {
			from  : 'top',        // 'top', or 'bottom'
			amount: 20
		},
		align          : 'right', // ('left', 'right', or 'center')
		width          : 250,     // (integer, or 'auto')
		delay          : 4000,    // in ms
		allow_dismiss  : true,
		stackup_spacing: 10       // spacing between consecutively stacked growls
	};

Notifications.init({
	// Setup custom notification handler (bootstrapGrowl)
	showHandler: function ( notification, callback ) {
		if ( notification && notification.content ) {
			var options = {
					type: ( notification.type === 'error' ) ? 'danger' : notification.type
				},
				notificationMmessage = '<h4><strong>' + notification.content.title + '</strong></h4>' +
										notification.content.text;

			$.bootstrapGrowl( notificationMmessage, _.defaults( options, defaults ) );

			if ( callback ) callback( notification );
		}
	}
});

// Not using callback in this example
Notifications.show({
	type   : 'info',
	content: {
		title: 'Hello!',
		text : 'Welcome to meteor-notifications!'
	}
});

• Initial version

Copyright © 2015 Miroslav Hibler

miro:notifications is licensed under the MIT license.