Growl 1.3 for Lion arrives in the Mac App Store

The Growl Project development team has released version 1.3 of its open source notification system for Mac OS X. The major update officially adds support for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and introduces several important changes.

One of the most notable changes is the way in which the app is distributed: the end-user edition of Growl 1.3 is currently only available from Apple's Mac App Store. Discussing the release, Project Lead Christopher Forsythe told Macworld that, despite moving to the Mac App Store as a paid app ($1.99/£1.49), "Growl is definitely still open source", adding that the project's software repository was locked down until 1.3 arrived; users will still be able to download and compile Growl source code from the site.

The new settings menu in Growl 1.3 Previously only available as a system preference pane, Growl 1.3 is now a separate application that can be accessed via a menu bar icon. With the new Rollup window, users can check previous notifications that they missed while away from their systems and advanced users can further customise Growl using web technologies (CSS/XHTML/JavaScript). However, GrowlMail is no longer supported by the project due to constraints on the team's resources. Further development will be left to longtime GrowlMail developer Rudy Richter. A new version of the Growl SDK has also been released for app developers.

Support for Growl notifications is already built into a number of popular Mac OS X applications, including the Adium IM client, Firefox, Thunderbird and the VLC Media Player. Notifications can be fully customised with new styles and users are given complete control over which notifications are shown.

More details about the release can be found in the Mac App Store description; at the time of writing, the version history page has yet to be updated with details of the new release. Version 1.3 of Growl is available to download for $1.99 (£1.49) and documentation is provided. Users upgrading from Growl 1.2.2 are advised to download and run the Growl uninstaller before purchasing and downloading version 1.3. Growl is released under the BSD license.

See also:

• Growl for Windows 2.0 arrives, a 2009 report from The H.
• Growl 1.2 drops support for Mac OS X 10.4, a 2009 report from The H.

(crve)