Get desktop notifications from Emacs shell commands ·

When interacting with the operating systems I always use Eshell because it integrates seamlessly with Emacs, supports (remote) TRAMP file names and also works nice on Windows.

After starting shell commands (like long running build jobs) I often lose track the task when switching buffers.

Thanks to Emacs hooks mechanism you can customize Emacs to call a elisp function when an external command finishes.

I use John Wiegleys excellent alert package to send desktop notifications:

(require 'alert)

(defun eshell-command-alert (process status)
 "Send `alert' with severity based on STATUS when PROCESS finished."
 (let* ((cmd (process-command process))
     (buffer (process-buffer process))
     (msg (format "%s: %s" (mapconcat 'identity cmd " ") status)))
 (if (string-prefix-p "finished" status)
     (alert msg :buffer buffer :severity 'normal)
    (alert msg :buffer buffer :severity 'urgent))))

(add-hook 'eshell-kill-hook #'eshell-command-alert)

alert rules can be setup programmatically. In my case I only want to get notified if the corresponding buffer is not visible:

(alert-add-rule :status '(buried) ;only send alert when buffer not visible
         :mode 'eshell-mode
         :style 'notifications)

This even works on TRAMP buffers. Below is a screenshot showing a Gnome desktop notification of a failed make command.