I created a Chrome extension in which it uses createHTMLNotification() to show a window on top of everything. However, starting from Chrome 28 Google decided to drop createHTMLNotification() entirely (why, Google. Why?). All in a sudden I need to find a replacement.

createHTMLNotification() let me to dynamically change things on the notification. However, I don't think the new Rich Notification let me do that.

Is there any work-around or suggestions? Thanks.

I created a Chrome extension in which it uses createHTMLNotification() to show a window on top of everything. However, starting from Chrome 28 Google decided to drop createHTMLNotification() entirely (why, Google. Why?). All in a sudden I need to find a replacement.

createHTMLNotification() let me to dynamically change things on the notification. However, I don't think the new Rich Notification let me do that.

Is there any work-around or suggestions? Thanks.

• javascript
• html
• google-chrome
• google-chrome-extension

• If you don't need fancy styling, but just an image, header and body, use webkitNotifications.createNotification(iconURL, head, body); and .show() / .close() to replace content. – Rob W Commented May 27, 2013 at 8:22
• On Mac OS X when using webkitNotifications.createNotification the icon will always be Chrome icon. There seems to be no way around this. – raine Commented Jun 2, 2013 at 14:59

2 Answers 2

The change was actually announced properly on the Chromium-Extensions mailing list. There was apparently some misunderstanding though, it was stated in august last year that it would remain in use for extensions, but that only lasted half a year.

Anyway, the official remended replacement is the Rich Notifications API. There is no other workaround planned.

After a little bit thinking, I still didn't want to be stuck with Google's default layout. So I used the image type notification, and put a generated canvas image on it. I can draw whatever I want, and I also created a little API to update the notification whenever I want. This worked out perfectly for me.

_{Thank you Google for making everything so plicated...}