The why and how on Growl (with video)

Say what!? You haven’t heard of Growl? And you call yourself a Mac user. Don’t worry, I’ve got the why and how on Growl. Before you know it, you’ll have the feature that Apple left out running on your machine.

So what is Growl? Growl is a centralized notification system for OS X. It allows your computer to alert you when certain events take place. I know this doesn’t sound all that exciting, but it’s extremely useful.

Use spaces a lot? Maybe you have iTunes running in its own space while you browse the net in another. That’s fantastic, but what happens when the song changes and you can’t name that song in 3 seconds? Well, normally, you’d have to switch to iTunes to find out. Lame. How about status changes in your Buddy List? Are you seriously going to try and watch everyone like a hawk all day long, waiting to swoop in on your friends and talk them to death? Doubtful. How about when you get a new message in an IM window, or your downloads/uploads finish? How are you supposed to know all of this stuff without being a peeping tom?

Growl can solve all of these problems and more. In fact, Growl may prove so useful that you soon won’t know how you lived without it.

There are four main reasons to use Growl, as outlined on their site:

• Control – you get to choose which applications get the priviledge to notify you
• Ease of Use – in true Apple fashion, it just works.
• Consistency – the style of your notifications is determined by a theme. This brings consistency to all of your apps across your system.
• Powerful – you have more options that just notifications, like spoken or emailed messages.

To install Growl, just download the package from their site (link below), mount the image and double click the installer. After you’re done installing, go to System Preferences, Other and Growl. Make sure you check “Launch Growl at Login” and then pick a display style (my fav is Music Video).

Applications that already support Growl include: Adium, Firefox, Cyberduck, Transmission, Dropbox, Skype, Twitterific, and so many more. If your favorite app isn’t on the list, there is still hope. There are plugins, scripts and apps that can help applications that aren’t supported, such as iTunes and Mail. There are plugins for Mail and Safari included with Growl, so you’ll want to install those.

One of the best applications that you can download to help out Growl is OmniGrowl. It adds support for things like iTunes, iCal events, Weather, RSS feeds and so much more. If you like Growl, then you’ll like OmniGrowl. It’s shareware, with a suggested donation of $10, but you can use it for free.

Basically, Growl allows your system to notify you of events without taking you away from what you’re doing. So you can keep browsing or working on your paper, but still be aware of Twitter, or your buddies on IM, or whatever else. Then, when you have more time, you can investigate all of that stuff later.

It’s really a mystery to me why Apple hasn’t already bought out Growl and incorporated it into OS X by default. I think of it as OS X’s missing feature.

Products [Growl, OmniGrowl]