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How can I write, from a bash script, to KDE's OSD or notification area? I am using KDE 4.5, and basically what I want is my script to report some stuff when it is run. Since I run the script by a shortcut, I have no console output, but I would like to write to OSD on notification area.

I know about, and use, "osd_cat" but that just puts some ugly text on the screen.

Thanks.

Patkos Csaba
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  • Usually, the answer to "How … kde4 … from the shell" starts with `qdbus`. I would expect something like `qdbus org.kde.knotify /Notify event "notice" "my script" '(' ')' "title" "body" 0 '(' ')' 1000 0` to work, but it produces no visible effect on my Ubuntu 10.04 kde 4.4.2. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Aug 12 '10 at 09:13
  • By the way, this is what passes for the API documentation: http://api.kde.org/4.x-api/kdebase-runtime-apidocs/knotify/html/classKNotify.html – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Aug 12 '10 at 09:15

2 Answers2

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notify-send 'why hello there'

notify-send is part of the package libnotify-tools.

perl -MDesktop::Notify -e'Desktop::Notify->new->create(body => q{why hello there})->show'

Desktop::Notify is available on CPAN.

daxim
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  • unfortunately, it's no longer a part of libnotify4 :-/ kdialog below still works. This is not a fault of daxim, just KDE's shifting libraries... – mike Feb 11 '14 at 12:26
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As an alternative: 

kdialog --passivepopup 'why hello there' 5

5 is the number of seconds it will last.
Run kdialog --help for other options, like title.

Malabarba
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    Don't even need to install any additional packages, and has all the options you would need, great! :-) – timss Mar 09 '14 at 20:26