Customizable Notifications on Mac
I eventually stumbled upon the SQLite database that holds app notifications. To my surprise, all the contents of your notifications are open and readable. And that’s when Growl came to mind. Could I build my own poor-mans Notification Center with different skins and themes?
It turns out, yes.
It’s no secret that Notification Center took a big step back in usability with Big Sur. Way further back, before Apple had an integrated solution, Growl was the go-to app for getting pop-up alerts from websites and apps. I’d completely forgotten that you could adjust their design to your liking. It’d be good to see some of that come back across Apple’s OSes. And it does seem like they’re trending in that direction.
But maybe a first step could be to let apps design their own notifications like they can with widgets. It would bring a lot of character back to the operating systems, and maybe even provide some inspiration for Apple to improve Notification Center.
There are limitations, but Roar lets us peek at that potential future.