Disable history - only show one notification at a time

[BigfootN]

Hello,

I am trying to disable the history. I would like to make a notification disappear if another appears, not having them both displayed, whether they are from the same group/application or not. Unfortunately, I didn't find any options related to what I am trying to achieve.

Hoping I was clear enough.

Thank you very much in advance.

[tsipinakis]

I'm not sure what the use-case is for this as you'd miss a notification if two arrive at the same time.
That said you can probably force this to happen by assigning all notifications the same stack tag:

[stack_all]
set_stack_tag = "tag"

[BigfootN]

Thank you for your quick answer.

It's mainly because when two notifications are displayed, there's a black block separating them and dunst saying:
WARNING: Invalid color string: ''

Thank you for your help

[tsipinakis]

That sounds like a bug or a broken configuration. Could you post your dunstrc and maybe a screenshot of what it looks like?

[BigfootN]

Thank your for your quick reply.

You can see the black block sperating them:

Here is my config:

[global]
### Display ###

# Which monitor should the notifications be displayed on.
monitor = 0

# Display notification on focused monitor.  Possible modes are:
#   mouse: follow mouse pointer
#   keyboard: follow window with keyboard focus
#   none: don't follow anything
#
# "keyboard" needs a window manager that exports the
# _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW property.
# This should be the case for almost all modern window managers.
#
# If this option is set to mouse or keyboard, the monitor option
# will be ignored.
follow = mouse

# The geometry of the window:
#   [{width}]x{height}[+/-{x}+/-{y}]
# The geometry of the message window.
# The height is measured in number of notifications everything else
# in pixels.  If the width is omitted but the height is given
# ("-geometry x2"), the message window expands over the whole screen
# (dmenu-like).  If width is 0, the window expands to the longest
# message displayed.  A positive x is measured from the left, a
# negative from the right side of the screen.  Y is measured from
# the top and down respectively.
# The width can be negative.  In this case the actual width is the
# screen width minus the width defined in within the geometry option.
geometry = "0x100-40+60"

# Show how many messages are currently hidden (because of geometry).
indicate_hidden = yes

# Shrink window if it's smaller than the width.  Will be ignored if
# width is 0.
shrink = no

# The transparency of the window.  Range: [0; 100].
# This option will only work if a compositing window manager is
# present (e.g. xcompmgr, compiz, etc.).
transparency = 0

# The height of the entire notification.  If the height is smaller
# than the font height and padding combined, it will be raised
# to the font height and padding.
notification_height = 0

# Draw a line of "separator_height" pixel height between two
# notifications.
# Set to 0 to disable.
separator_height = 20

# Padding between text and separator.
padding = 10

# Horizontal padding.
horizontal_padding = 10

# Defines width in pixels of frame around the notification window.
# Set to 0 to disable.
frame_width = 0

# Defines color of the frame around the notification window.
frame_color = "#935401"

# Sort messages by urgency.
sort = yes

# Don't remove messages, if the user is idle (no mouse or keyboard input)
# for longer than idle_threshold seconds.
# Set to 0 to disable.
# A client can set the 'transient' hint to bypass this. See the rules
# section for how to disable this if necessary
idle_threshold = 60

### Text ###

font = Open Sans Condensed 11

# The spacing between lines.  If the height is smaller than the
# font height, it will get raised to the font height.
line_height = 10

# Possible values are:
# full: Allow a small subset of html markup in notifications:
#        <b>bold</b>
#        <i>italic</i>
#        <s>strikethrough</s>
#        <u>underline</u>
#
#        For a complete reference see
#        <http://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html>.
#
# strip: This setting is provided for compatibility with some broken
#        clients that send markup even though it's not enabled on the
#        server. Dunst will try to strip the markup but the parsing is
#        simplistic so using this option outside of matching rules for
#        specific applications *IS GREATLY DISCOURAGED*.
#
# no:    Disable markup parsing, incoming notifications will be treated as
#        plain text. Dunst will not advertise that it has the body-markup
#        capability if this is set as a global setting.
#
# It's important to note that markup inside the format option will be parsed
# regardless of what this is set to.
markup = full

# The format of the message.  Possible variables are:
#   %a  appname
#   %s  summary
#   %b  body
#   %i  iconname (including its path)
#   %I  iconname (without its path)
#   %p  progress value if set ([  0%] to [100%]) or nothing
#   %n  progress value if set without any extra characters
#   %%  Literal %
# Markup is allowed
format = "%I<b>%s</b>\n%b"

# Alignment of message text.
# Possible values are "left", "center" and "right".
alignment = left

# Show age of message if message is older than show_age_threshold
# seconds.
# Set to -1 to disable.
show_age_threshold = -1

# Split notifications into multiple lines if they don't fit into
# geometry.
word_wrap = yes

# When word_wrap is set to no, specify where to make an ellipsis in long lines.
# Possible values are "start", "middle" and "end".
ellipsize = middle

# Ignore newlines '\n' in notifications.
ignore_newline = no

# Stack together notifications with the same content
stack_duplicates = no

# Hide the count of stacked notifications with the same content
hide_duplicate_count = true

# Display indicators for URLs (U) and actions (A).
show_indicators = yes

### Icons ###

# Align icons left/right/off
icon_position = left

# Scale larger icons down to this size, set to 0 to disable
max_icon_size = 42

# Paths to default icons.
icon_path = /usr/share/icons/gnome/16x16/status/:/usr/share/icons/gnome/16x16/devices/

### History ###

[transient_history_ignore]
    match_transient = yes
    history_ignore = yes

# Should a notification popped up from history be sticky or timeout
# as if it would normally do.
sticky_history = yes

# Maximum amount of notifications kept in history
history_length = 0

### Misc/Advanced ###

separator_color = frame

# dmenu path.
dmenu = /usr/bin/dmenu -p dunst:

# Browser for opening urls in context menu.
browser = /usr/bin/firefox -new-tab

# Always run rule-defined scripts, even if the notification is suppressed
always_run_script = true

# Define the title of the windows spawned by dunst
title = Dunst

# Define the class of the windows spawned by dunst
class = Dunst

# Print a notification on startup.
# This is mainly for error detection, since dbus (re-)starts dunst
# automatically after a crash.
startup_notification = false

# Manage dunst's desire for talking
# Can be one of the following values:
#  crit: Critical features. Dunst aborts
#  warn: Only non-fatal warnings
#  mesg: Important Messages
#  info: all unimportant stuff
# debug: all less than unimportant stuff
verbosity = mesg

# Define the corner radius of the notification window
# in pixel size. If the radius is 0, you have no rounded
# corners.
# The radius will be automatically lowered if it exceeds half of the
# notification height to avoid clipping text and/or icons.
corner_radius = 8

### Legacy

# Use the Xinerama extension instead of RandR for multi-monitor support.
# This setting is provided for compatibility with older nVidia drivers that
# do not support RandR and using it on systems that support RandR is highly
# discouraged.
#
# By enabling this setting dunst will not be able to detect when a monitor
# is connected or disconnected which might break follow mode if the screen
# layout changes.
force_xinerama = false

### mouse

# Defines action of mouse event
# Possible values are:
# * none: Don't do anything.
# * do_action: If the notification has exactly one action, or one is marked as default,
#              invoke it. If there are multiple and no default, open the context menu.
# * close_current: Close current notification.
# * close_all: Close all notifications.
mouse_left_click = close_current
mouse_middle_click = do_action
mouse_right_click = close_all

[experimental]
# Calculate the dpi to use on a per-monitor basis.
# If this setting is enabled the Xft.dpi value will be ignored and instead
# dunst will attempt to calculate an appropriate dpi value for each monitor
# using the resolution and physical size. This might be useful in setups
# where there are multiple screens with very different dpi values.
per_monitor_dpi = false

[shortcuts]

# Shortcuts are specified as [modifier+][modifier+]...key
# Available modifiers are "ctrl", "mod1" (the alt-key), "mod2",
# "mod3" and "mod4" (windows-key).
# Xev might be helpful to find names for keys.

# Close notification.
close = ctrl+space

# Close all notifications.
close_all = ctrl+shift+space

# Redisplay last message(s).
# On the US keyboard layout "grave" is normally above TAB and left
# of "1". Make sure this key actually exists on your keyboard layout,
# e.g. check output of 'xmodmap -pke'
history = ctrl+grave

# Context menu.
context = ctrl+shift+period

[urgency_low]
background = "#101010"
foreground = "#e4e4e4"
timeout = 3

[urgency_normal]
background = "#101010"
foreground = "#e4e4e4"
timeout = 3

[urgency_critical]
background = "#101010"
foreground = "#e4e4e4"
timeout = 3

Thank you for your precious help.

[tsipinakis]

Well, apparently it's both!

It's a bug that if separator_color is unset it defaults to nothing. Your config is broken because you define the [transient_history_ignore] section in the middle of the global section, this invalidates all settings bellow that. You should move that bellow that, under the urgency_ sections for example.

[tsipinakis]

Oh also, that box is the separator, you have set separator_height = 20 at the top of your config, which is why it's so big. Try lowering it to like 5 (pixels)

[BigfootN]

Thank you, after having placed [transient_history_ignore] under the urgency_ sections, it now works. But would it be possible to have the notifications placed underneath each other, independently, without having some colored block ?

Thank you very much in advance.

[tsipinakis]

You mean having it be completely transparent? It can't be done currently. There has been some discussion about some ways this could be added but each has its own difficulties. See #180, #289

[BigfootN]

Thank you very much. I understand.

Thank your for your time.