Snarl

Lo behold, just a few weeks after discovering Growl for Windows, I have found something much more cooler: Snarl. Like Growl, Snarl is meant to gather and display notifications. But, I found it to be much better than Growl in its presentation and features. What is more, it can listen for Growl notifications and display them too. For example, I can continue to use the Growl addon I used in Visual Studio and have its build result notification show up using Snarl.

An added bonus is the neat set of applications that come built-in with Snarl. The Clock+ application displays a notification once an hour, reminding me that another hour has passed and acts like the chime of the grandfather clock from my childhood. The AudioMon application shows the current volume as a meter when I change or mute the volume using the buttons on my laptop or my Autohotkey volume shortcuts. The SysInfo application monitors system parameters like battery level and notifies when it crosses a threshold.

Snarl is packed with features and it takes a while to iterate through its settings. But I am pretty sure you will appreciate the attention to detail the developers have put into this app. The display of the notifications is tastefully done and it is a joy to see them pop up on the screen. (I think they resemble the look of GNOME.) In addition, Snarl ships with a lot of different notification themes and styles to suit your taste.

Tried with: Snarl R2.5 on Windows 7