Gmail Brings Desktop Notifications to Chat

Gmail Brings Desktop Notifications to Chat

The Gmail blog has announced a new feature today that will let users opt for desktop notifications of chat. This provides users with notification messages once they receive a new chat. It is very similar to the desktop notification feature for Google Talk and comes in handy for people who chat from the browser itself.

The Gmail blog announces this new feature as:

If you use Google Chrome, these days can be over since we just launched HTML5 desktop notifications which display pop-ups whenever a chat message or new email arrives.

The new notification system is based on HTML5 and can be turned on at Settings -> General tab. If you have tried this with a different browser other than Google Chrome, you would have seen this message:




Google has made the feature available only for Chrome users currently but has assured of supporting more browsers in future as it will roll out this notifications system as part of the Standard Web Platform.

In Google Chrome, you will see the option as:




As evident from Google’s plans of incorporating this into the Standard Web Platform, the feature will work not only for Google Chat, but also for AOL IM, Yahoo! IM and other chats. The notification appears as:

It took a while before the feature started working after turning it on, but the notifications look classy and are quite helpful because I have lost important conversations on multiple occasions. Chat is a method of instant conversation and once included into the Standard Web Platform, this will definitely improve the web as a whole.