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Setting system tray popup messages

Continuing my previous post about setting system-tray icons, I will now show how to set informational popup messages next to these icons.

Asynchronous informational messages can be presented next to the sys-tray icon, in a fashion similar to what we came to expect from modern programs. This could be used to indicate some unexpected event that was detected, or the end of a complex calculation phase. The message title, text and severity icon are all customizable.

Unfortunately, the Java method used to display messages, java.awt.TrayIcon.displayMessage(), expects an object of type java.awt.TrayIcon.MessageType, which is an enumeration within the TrayIcon class. However, Matlab’s dot-notation does not recognize what should have been the following correct notation, so we need to resort to Java reflection:

>> trayIcon.displayMessage('title','info msg',TrayIcon.MessageType.INFO);
??? No appropriate method or public field MessageType for class java.awt.TrayIcon

>> trayIconClasses = trayIcon.getClass.getClasses;
>> trayIconClasses(1)
ans =
class java.awt.TrayIcon$MessageType	<= hurray!!!
>> MessageTypes = trayIconClasses(1).getEnumConstants
MessageTypes =
java.awt.TrayIcon$MessageType[]:
    [java.awt.TrayIcon$MessageType]	<= 1: ERROR
    [java.awt.TrayIcon$MessageType]	<= 2: WARNING
    [java.awt.TrayIcon$MessageType]	<= 3: INFO
    [java.awt.TrayIcon$MessageType]	<= 4: NONE
>> trayIcon.displayMessage('title','info msg',MessageTypes(3));

systray INFO message

and another example, now with a WARNING icon:

systray WARNING message

If the title string is left empty, then neither title nor the severity icon will be displayed. The message can still be manually dismissed by clicking within its boundaries:


systray messages without a title (hence also without a severity icon)
systray messages without a title (hence also without a severity icon)

Informational popup messages are automatically aligned and positioned by the system. Messages are automatically dismissed by the system after some time, if not dismissed by the user first. The exact time is determined by system and user activity and other such external factors. Informational messages replace one another, if the previous message has still not been cleared by the user.

I have created a utility function called SYSTRAY, which is a convenience function that facilitates the setup and update of system tray icons and messages. SYSTRAY (with source code) can be downloaded from the File Exchange.

I would be happy to hear if and how you’re using the new system-tray functionality in your application - let me know below.

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Related posts:

  1. Setting system tray icons System-tray icons can be programmatically set and controlled from within Matlab, using new functionality available since R2007b....
  2. Customizing help popup contents The built-in HelpPopup, available since Matlab R2007b, has a back-door that enables displaying arbitrary text, HTML and URL web-pages....
  3. Setting status-bar text The Matlab desktop and figure windows have a usable statusbar which can only be set using undocumented methods. This post shows how to set the status-bar text....
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Desktop, GUI, Icons, Java, Low risk of breaking in future versions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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4 Responses to “Setting system tray popup messages”

  1. Jason McMains Jason McMains says:
    July 10, 2009 at 8:06 am

    Yair,
    Thanks again for this utility, just thought I would let you know that I’m using this to replace any helpdlg boxes that I previously used to give process direction during a program, like click here, or define this range. Using this, a user can breeze through a program if they know what to do, or go slowly and read the pop-ups.

  2. Updating speaker sound volume | Undocumented Matlab Updating speaker sound volume | Undocumented Matlab says:
    October 15, 2009 at 9:14 am

    [...] Unfortunately, Matlab prevents using Java classnames containing a period (e.g., Port.Info) or static Interface values, so we cannot directly access Port.Info.SPEAKER or FloatControl.Type.VOLUME. I’ve reported this bug to Mathworks earlier this year, and I do not know in which Matlab release (if at all) they intend to fix it. Until then we need to use workarounds, as in the code above. I posted a similar issue (and its workaround) earlier in this blog, when setting system-tray popup message. [...]

  3. Albert Albert says:
    December 17, 2009 at 5:11 am

    On the version (R2007b) of Matlab I use this statement does not work:
    trayIconClasses = trayIcon.getClass.getClasses;
    ??? No method ‘getClass’ with matching signature found for class ‘java.awt.TrayIcon’.

    Is it supprted on later versions?

  4. Yair Altman Yair Altman says:
    December 27, 2009 at 3:53 pm

    Albert - it should work on Matlab installations that run JVM 1.6+. To determine your JVM version, type the following in your Command Window:

    version -java

    If this is not helpful, try to inspect the trayIcon object using the methodsview function, to see why the getClass method fails:

    methodsview(trayIcon);

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