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Don't worry, Stack Alert is available for other browsers as well. Visit the appropriate page for your browser below:

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Stack Alert in action on Chrome.      Stack Alert Advertisement.

About

What better way to keep an eye on your inbox than with a Chrome extension? Now you can tell at a glance how many items are in your inbox without worrying about having a tab open to a Stack Exchange site.

License

GPL version 3

Download

You can get the extension from the Chrome Web Store:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bpficcollblmkmoofnbnfhibdhfolamm

Platform

Any platform that runs Google Chrome or Chromium.

Contact

I can be reached at admin@quickmediasolutions.com.

Code

The extension is written in JavaScript.

You can get the code here: https://github.com/nathan-osman/Stack-Alert
(look in the chrome/ folder for the Chrome-specific code)

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Suggestion: can you make the app mark an item as read when I click on it? – David Zaslavsky Jan 2 '12 at 2:14
@DavidZaslavsky: Still looking into that since the API doesn't provide that capability. But yes, that would be a nice feature. – Nathan Osman♦ Jan 2 '12 at 2:35
OK, I had a feeling. Though even if you can't mark it as read with an API call, just having the app keep a local cache of items that have been clicked and marking them as read until the next refresh would be useful. – David Zaslavsky Jan 2 '12 at 2:51
would it be possible to scroll through old items? BTW love the Chrome Extension! – Sathya Jan 2 '12 at 4:37
@Sathya: I can add that, sure. – Nathan Osman♦ Jan 2 '12 at 19:13
Slight problems with unicode characters? i.imgur.com/gEIdS.png – Sathya Jan 8 '12 at 4:40
@Sathya: Oy! That's a bad Unicode bug. I'll look into it. – Nathan Osman♦ Jan 8 '12 at 5:24
@GeorgeEdison also, with the last update, clicking on anything goes to Google.ca – Sathya Jan 8 '12 at 5:59
@Sathya: 0.15 has been released and should fix that last problem. – Nathan Osman♦ Jan 8 '12 at 6:24
@GeorgeEdison thanks - that fixes the Google.ca problem... and brings in one more :( i.imgur.com/B4bEv.png – Sathya Jan 8 '12 at 7:59
ok, with the latest update the all items link to a totally random question – Sathya Jan 10 '12 at 12:22
@Sathya: I can't seem to win :) I'll get it fixed as soon as I can. – Nathan Osman♦ Jan 10 '12 at 18:59
@Sathya: I think everything is fixed now, but (as mentioned in the note at the top) you will need to uninstall it and install it from the link above. The extension is now listed in the Chrome Web Store. – Nathan Osman♦ Jan 11 '12 at 6:28
Thanks @GeorgeEdison seems to work fine now – Sathya Jan 11 '12 at 7:08
Where do I report bugs? In the comments? In the answers, or what? – C. Ross Jan 17 '12 at 17:17
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2 Answers

up vote 7 down vote

EDIT: Implemented using Web Sockets (because the caching characteristics of the API does not allow real-time notifications). I created a Chrome extension and Firefox add-on, and created a Stack Apps listing at Real-time desktop notifications for Stack Exchange inbox.

In Google Chrome, the popup is closed when performing an action outside it (clicking, navigating, ...).

Can you implement Desktop Notifications in the Google Chrome extension (sample code 1, sample 2)?
It would look like this:
New Message! @RobW Hello!

Related documentation

share|improve this answer
Thank you for asking. Popup notifications are planned for a future release but I will need to be careful when implementing them because this extension is designed to work on multiple browsers. That shouldn't be a problem (since I can always disable the feature on browsers that don't support desktop notifications) but it is definitely something to keep in mind. – Nathan Osman♦ Apr 10 '12 at 22:56
@GeorgeEdison Currently, Chrome is the only browser which natively support notifications. I can imagine that some users don't like notifications in Chrome, so add an option to set this preference. To implement this feature in Firefox, you can have a look at the source code of this add-on. – Rob W Apr 11 '12 at 8:15
up vote 4 down vote

Bug: When the error popup is displayed, no error is displayed (only a .), and clicking the Ok button does not dismiss the popup box.

Error box

share|improve this answer
Trying to get a screenshot, but clicking off it dismisses it. I'll get it next time. – C. Ross Jan 17 '12 at 20:12
Thanks for the error report - I'll see that this gets fixed soon. – Nathan Osman♦ Jan 17 '12 at 20:44
1  
I've been getting this fairly often, esp when there is an unread item – Sathya Jan 18 '12 at 5:20
@C.Ross: This is now fixed with the latest release. – Nathan Osman♦ Jan 19 '12 at 20:39
@GeorgeEdison Is it up on the web store? – C. Ross Jan 19 '12 at 21:04
@C.Ross: Yes, version 0.21 is up now and contains the fix for your problem. – Nathan Osman♦ Jan 19 '12 at 21:19
1  
@GeorgeEdison FYI: Version 0.21 does not fix that problem. I still have it all the time (as in: two or more times per day). – Tomalak Aug 5 '12 at 9:11
@GeorgeEdison Yeah, I still get the problem too. I've just gotten used to clicking OK ... – C. Ross Aug 5 '12 at 12:43
I really need a Chrome extension developer to figure out what's going on - plus I'm swamped with other projects. – Nathan Osman♦ Aug 5 '12 at 14:39

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