title: Get users' attention when browser is minimized (cross-browser desktop notifications?)
body: <p>I'm working on a browser-based application that needs to be able to get users' attention when the user receives an incoming event, such as a message, even if the user has minimized the browser.</p>
  
  <p>Searching gave me some good results, but nothing cross-browser or firefox-specific. I need to be able to support IE 7+ and FF 3.6+ (specific to the user base).</p>
  
  <p>Here are the things I've looked at:  </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4104016/are-there-any-javascript-library-for-cross-browser-desktop-notification">Are there any JavaScript library for cross browser desktop notification?</a>  </li>
  <li><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37122/make-browser-window-blink-in-task-bar">Make browser window blink in task Bar</a></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>So far, we used a simple javascript alert to get the tray icon to flash, but that created an extra click in trying to respond to the notification (total of 3 clicks now, or a 33% degradation). Users are expected to do this 20-50 times a day, so it will get really annoying really quickly.</p>
  
  <p>Based on an example provided on Microsoft developers network, I made this simple prototype that worked well for IE, but it's IE-specific and will not work in other browsers:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;HTML&gt;
  &lt;HEAD&gt;
  &lt;TITLE&gt;Popup Example&lt;/TITLE&gt;
  &lt;SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JScript"&gt;
  function timeMsg()
  {
      var t=setTimeout("ButtonClick()",5000);
  }
  
  var oPopup = window.createPopup();
  
  function ButtonClick()
  {
      var oPopBody = oPopup.document.body;
      var myHeight = (window.screen.availHeight - 125);
      var myWidth = (window.screen.availWidth - 350);
  
      oPopBody.style.backgroundColor = "red";
      oPopBody.style.border = "solid black 1px";
      oPopBody.innerHTML = "Click outside &lt;B&gt;popup&lt;/B&gt; to close.";
      oPopup.show(myWidth, myHeight, 300, 75);
  }
  &lt;/SCRIPT&gt;
  &lt;/HEAD&gt;
  &lt;BODY&gt;
  &lt;BUTTON onclick="timeMsg()"&gt;Display alert in 5 seconds&lt;/BUTTON&gt;
  &lt;/BODY&gt;
  &lt;/HTML&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Any suggestions on how to make this experience better without using an executable installed locally are greatly appreciated!</p>