Growl plugin

[jlrichar]

Hello, I am attempting to configure the growl plugin that Dale3H created. I have installed growl for windows, the HS growl plugin, and Dales Growl HS plugin. I have entered "localhost" for the hostname in the HS growl setup. In the HS plugin in the growl app, I have turned notifications on. Then I setup a test event to send a test message at a set time with growl. I never see the message in growl.

Also, I attempted to post this question in the growl plugin discussion, but I evidently do not have permissions for that?

Anyone?

[jlrichar]

Doh

Just disabling the plugin, then re-enabling it fixed it.

[drozwood90]

How do you like the growl plugin?

[jlrichar]

The plugin seems to work well. Between the HS plugin, the growl plugin, growl for windows, and boxcar on the iphone I have a huge amount of options for what notifications I want delivered, where, and what I want them to do.

Just for documentation Purposes this is what I am running:

1. HS Pro
2. HS Growl Plugin and Growl HS Plugin
3. Growl for windows
4. Boxcar

Also, I actually have the unlimited SMS plan on AT&T (still hate that they charge for it at all since it essentially free for them), and the growl/boxcar is working quicker, and more reliably.

[Guest]

Is growl the best option for me?

Hi All,

Searched on growl and this is the most recent thread. Looking for advice, recommendations, etc. on the following.

I currently use HS Pro and UltraMon to monitor a number of network devices, physical servers, virtual servers (VMware vSphere ESX 4), and specific application services in my home computer lab. I have set up events to send email when UltraMon sees the state change - i.e. whatever it is goes up or down. It's a bit tedious to set up but is very flexible. This works great but it's time to get more sophisticated such as adding iPhone alerts.

I use Pingdom (www.pingdom.com) and their iPhone app to monitor my Internet connection from the public side (use dyndns or similar service to handle the dynamically assigned ip address). It's free for 1 device and works great. It has a nice interface where it will display current status and history (such as % up and down time). Ideally this is what I'm after with HS and my iPhone. A single app where I can see status and receive alerts for important event changes. Unfortunately it's too expensive to use Pingdom for 1-2 dozen things that need to be monitored.

I'm familiar with growl, having used it on Macs. An iTunes app store search turned up two growl aware apps. It looks simple enough to add growl notifications to HS. Is this the course you would recommend or is there a better option? I'm not married to UltraMon so if there's a better overall solution I'm open to learning about it.

Re pingdom - I don't have any affiliation but if you try and like the service please spread the word and tell your company's IT department about it. It's pretty slick and they deserve some goodwill for letting us monitor one device for free.

Thanks all!

[jlrichar]

I am using HS Pro, Growl plugin, Growl for windows, UltraMon, and Boxcar on the iphone to do something very similar to what you want. It is very reliable.

I set up some events that tell me when any of my IP capable network appliances go down. I have one event that notifies me when a device is not communicating for 5 minutes, and then another when it is not for 30 minutes.

[Guest]

This works great!

Can you show me what your 5 or 30 minute HS event looks like?

Here's the link for anyone wondering how to configure Growl Windows to forward alerts to Boxcar so they appear on the iPhone. http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/forwarders/boxcar

[ggodart]

I'm using the Growl Plugin to post warning messages to my iPhone via Prowl and it is working fine, unfortunately unless you code the date and time into the message all Prowl shows you is how many hours ago the message was delivered, could I please request a small enhancement that allowed the time to be automatically added to the front of the message?
THX

[Moskus]

I'm using the Growl plugin too and I'm happy with it.

But I too am missing the option to add a date. However, if the plugin author want it, I can share my code for string replacements used in TwittSeer. For example adding "EXRP(now)" to the Grow text, will instead add "12.01.2011 11:47:38" (depending on your date/time formatting in the system settings).

[Guest]

I'm using the Growl Plugin to post warning messages to my iPhone via Prowl and it is working fine, unfortunately unless you code the date and time into the message all Prowl shows you is how many hours ago the message was delivered, could I please request a small enhancement that allowed the time to be automatically added to the front of the message?
THX

I think we need more flexibility at both the HS and Growl ends. Experimenting with this last night, I would like more control over messages. Neither HS nor Growl should make any assumptions about alert formatting. I would like to be able to mimic some of the alerts I get from my travel apps that format nicely on multiple lines.

[Moskus]

"Control" like how? Can you give an example?

I'm just asking as to me it seems like it's you that are in control of the messages, not HomeSeer or Growl.

[Guest]

The alert was {APPNAME}: {TITLE} - {TEXT}

I changed the Boxcar setting to eliminate the title. HS requires a title and message for the Growl event action. A title or message (but not necessarily both) should suffice.

I would like to be able to specify with carriage return/line feed so alerts can be formatted for better readability. Not everything looks good on the same line with text possibly wrapped.

I think this functionality requires changes to both HS and Boxcar. HS - needs to be ok with title and/or message, formatting codes such as CR and/or LF. Boxcar - needs an option to display only what it receives without any pre-defined formatting, strings or text that cannot be changed or removed. It needs to be able to handle CR and/or LF.

[Moskus]

Perhaps you're looking at the wrong technology?
Emails or text messages (sms) seems to be more suited to your needs.

Growl or Snarl are meant to handle multiple messages from many different system, not just HomeSeer. It's just meant to be a little more general than that.

I use Growl almost all of my computers, but the different computers has different display style of messages. Making messages with a carriage return "for readability" may make sense on one system, but not so much on another.

[Guest]

That's where flexibility comes in.

In Growl for Windows installed on my HS server, when I right mouse click the Boxcar notification option for forwarded messages it has a 'format' option field. If the Boxcar plug-in for Growl for Windows had the flexibility I desire then I would just need HS to not get in it's way. Obviously if HS requires I enter a title string and Boxcar provides a way to ignore it (currently the case) then HS requiring both fields is jut a nit.

It looks to me that Growl for Windows is flexible enough as it is that it's mostly the Boxcar plug-in that needs to be changed. HS may or may not get in it's way as I don't know what limitations exist in HS other than must have both title and message.

I don't get how what I'm asking causes any issues with existing functionality whether Growl notifications are displayed on an iPhone or a different computer. The end-point displays it the same or differently, depending if it can handle formatting.

I'll contact the Boxcar plug-in author. Maybe it can already do what I want.

[Moskus]

HS may or may not get in it's way as I don't know what limitations exist in HS other than must have both title and message.

If you're ignoring the title, does it really matter what you set it to?

However, you're right. It should be possible to send a "newline" character to get a new line. How you define that as a string I don't know...

From the Growl Integration Guide:

NOTE: Any values sent to Growl (including the notification title, text, callback data, etc) must *not* contain any carriage return/line feed character sequences (\r\n). This sequence is used as the end-of-line delimiter in the GNTP protocol. If you want to send a line break as part of your value, you should use a single newline character (\n).