Notifications

When working in a dialog, do not check the validity of the input and notify the user about invalid data with a modal dialog when the OK button is pressed. Instead, use DialogWrapper.doValidate() described in the Dialogs section.

For actions invoked from the editor (such as refactorings, navigation actions, and different code insight features), the best way to notify the user about the inability to perform an action is to use the HintManager class.

Its method showErrorHint() displays a floating popup above the editor which is automatically hidden when the user starts performing another action in the editor. Other HintManager methods can be used for displaying other kinds of non-modal notification hints over an editor.

Notifications that appear at the top of the file editor are a great way to ask the user to take an important action that would otherwise impede their experience if ignored (e.g., missing SDK, setup/project configuration requiring user input).

Register an implementation of EditorNotificationProvider using com.intellij.editorNotificationProvider extension point. If access to indexes is not required, it can be marked dumb-aware.

A commonly used UI implementation is EditorNotificationPanel.

Use to highlight important new/changed features via GotItTooltip.

The most general way to display non-modal notifications is to use the Notifications class.

It has two main advantages:

• The user can control the way each notification type is displayed under Settings | Appearance & Behavior | Notifications

• All displayed notifications are gathered in the Notifications tool window and can be reviewed later

tip

See Tool Window Notification for showing balloons for a specific tool window.

The specific method used to display a notification is Notifications.Bus.notify(). If the current Project is known, please use overload with the Project parameter, so the notification is shown in its associated frame.

The text of the notification can include HTML tags for presentation purposes. Use Notification.addAction(AnAction) to add links below the content, use NotificationAction for convenience.

The groupId parameter of the Notification constructor specifies a notification type. The user can choose the display type corresponding to each notification type under Settings | Appearance & Behavior | Notifications.

To specify the preferred display type, you need to use NotificationGroup to create notifications.

Please see the following steps for setup, depending on the target platform version.

<extensions defaultExtensionNs="com.intellij">
  <notificationGroup id="Custom Notification Group"
                     displayType="BALLOON"
                     key="notification.group.name"/>
</extensions>

public class MyNotifier {

  public static void notifyError(Project project, String content) {
    NotificationGroupManager.getInstance()
        .getNotificationGroup("Custom Notification Group")
        .createNotification(content, NotificationType.ERROR)
        .notify(project);
  }

}

public class MyNotifier {

  private static final NotificationGroup NOTIFICATION_GROUP =
      new NotificationGroup("Custom Notification Group",
              NotificationDisplayType.BALLOON, true);

  public static void notifyError(Project project, String content) {
    NOTIFICATION_GROUP.createNotification(content, NotificationType.ERROR)
        .notify(project);
  }

}