Python and Growl

Python and Growl

Growl is an open source notification software for Mac OS, long before Mac OS has its own Notification Center. When Growl was put on the App Store, it was not free anymore. It is now free for download again, most likely Mac OS already has a Notification Center, Growl is not important anymore.

Since Growl has been around the market for quite some time, the protocol is simple but useful. Other than C, Java library for Growl, Python has a library support to send notification messages to Growl as well. You can forward the message from Growl to Notification Center.

This is how you can send notification message from Python
$ pip install gntp # gntp, Growl Notification Transfer Protocol

If you have python 2 and 3 installed, and you want to use Python3:
$ pip3 instaall gntp
$ python3 -m gntp.notifier # testing

You should see the message displayed. If not, start the growl app and try again.