What's a good way to alert a message is waiting?

General
1

I am integrating an internal message system into a Mac OS X accounting program. I have a menu item “Messages” under a “View” menu that changes text with the number of messages waiting, like so: Messages (3)

I can poll the database every so often to check for messages, but I didn’t want to use an intrusive alert such as a MsgBox.

I have seen some email programs either use a dock icon or a menu bar icon indicating the number of messages. I have also seen a popup notification slide in front the right quickly and then disappear (is this a Mac OS X feature?).

What would be an easy approach to show messages waiting at a glance?

2

I have a messaging system built into an accounting system I created. I’m in the process of upgrading the message system.

I have a server app that connects to all users using a TCP server socket for communication.
I have a conversations table with “user1” and “user2”. I store the ongoing conversation in the message field, appending new messages to the beginning. When a message is sent I send a notification (via TCP) to the receiving user. The receiving app displays a notification using WinUserNotificationMBS. In addition I display a notification ‘bubble’ in the app and in the system tray. This 'bubble shows the amount of unread messages. Clicking on the bubble opens the message center, or you can right click and select a message from the list.

EDIT: This is Windows. I’m not sure how you would do the tray and the notification on Mac.

3

StatusItems (menubar icon in the right corner), Notification Center, and Dock Badging are all available through MBS if you want to take advantage of the native, built in features for Mac.

4

[quote=333790:@David Schlam]I am integrating an internal message system into a Mac OS X accounting program. I have a menu item “Messages” under a “View” menu that changes text with the number of messages waiting, like so: Messages (3)

I can poll the database every so often to check for messages, but I didn’t want to use an intrusive alert such as a MsgBox.

I have seen some email programs either use a dock icon or a menu bar icon indicating the number of messages. I have also seen a popup notification slide in front the right quickly and then disappear (is this a Mac OS X feature?).

What would be an easy approach to show messages waiting at a glance?[/quote]

Badge the dock icon
Thats entirely possible already

5

[quote=333817:@Norman Palardy]Badge the dock icon
Thats entirely possible already[/quote]
Is there a reference somewhere on how to do this?

6

http://documentation.xojo.com/index.php/DockItem

the icon is JUST a picture so you can create whatever you need to and put that picture on the dock item

HOW you badge it is up to you

7

Thanks. Works perfectly.