Desktop Notifier in Python

A desktop notifier is a Python application that displays short messages through the operating system's notification system. It can deliver news headlines, reminders, task updates, and other alerts without requiring users to open a separate application.

In this article, we will create a news desktop notifier that reads headlines from an RSS feed and displays them as desktop notifications using Python.

Installation

• Feedparser: This library retrieves and parses RSS and Atom feeds, allowing Python applications to access news headlines and summaries.
• Desktop-notifier: This library sends notifications through supported operating system APIs on Linux, Windows, and macOS. Platform-specific settings may affect notification delivery.

python -m pip install feedparser desktop-notifier

1. Importing Required Libraries

Import asyncio to execute asynchronous operations, feedparser to read news, and DesktopNotifier to display notifications.

import feedparser
from desktop_notifier import DesktopNotifier

2. Defining RSS Feel URL

We will use the BBC News RSS feed to retrieve the latest available headlines.

RSS_FEED_URL = "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml"
MAX_HEADLINES = 5

Explanation:

• RSS_FEED_URL stores the source of the news headlines.
• MAX_HEADLINES limits the number of notifications displayed in one run.
• DesktopNotifier initializes the notification service with an application name.

3. Cleaning News Text

RSS feeds may contain HTML tags and encoded characters. Define a function to make the text more readable before displaying it.

def clean_text(value):
    """Remove HTML tags and decode HTML entities."""
    text = re.sub(r"<[^>]+>", " ", value)
    return unescape(text).strip()

Explanation:

• clean_text() accepts a string containing a headline or summary.
• re.sub() replaces HTML tags with spaces.
• unescape() converts encoded characters, such as &, into their readable equivalents.
• strip() removes unnecessary whitespace from the beginning and end.

4. Retrieving and Validate News Headlines

Creating an asynchronous main() function to retrieve news entries from the RSS feed.

async def main():
    feed = feedparser.parse(RSS_FEED_URL)

    if not feed.entries:
        print("No headlines found. Check the feed URL or internet connection.")
        return

    print(f"Retrieved {len(feed.entries)} news entries.")

Explanation:

• feedparser.parse() retrieves and parses the RSS feed.
• feed.entries contains the available news items.
• If condition checks whether the feed returned any entries.
• print() displays the number of entries retrieved.
• return stops execution when no headlines are available.

5. Displaying Desktop Notifications

Following code inside the main() function, immediately after the validation step.

for entry in feed.entries[:MAX_HEADLINES]:
    title = clean_text(entry.get("title", "News Update"))
    summary = clean_text(entry.get("summary", ""))

    if not summary:
        summary = "Open the news website to read the full story."

    await notifier.send(
        title=title,
        message=summary[:250]
    )

    print(f"Notification sent: {title}")
    await asyncio.sleep(2)

Explanation:

• For loop processes up to five news entries.
• entry.get() retrieves each headline and summary, using a default value when a field is missing.
• clean_text() removes HTML tags and cleans the extracted text.
• If condition provides a fallback message when a summary is unavailable.
• notifier.send() displays the headline and its summary as a desktop notification.
• summary[:250] limits the notification message to 250 characters.
• asyncio.sleep(2) adds a two-second delay between notifications.

6. Running Asynchronous Program

Add the following code at the end of desktop_notifier.py.

if __name__ == "__main__":
    asyncio.run(main())

Explanation:

• if condition checks whether the file is being executed directly.
• asyncio.run() starts the asynchronous main() function and manages its event loop.
• This entry point runs the news retrieval and notification process.

7. Execute Program

Run the following command in your terminal.

python desktop_notifier.py

Complete Program

import asyncio
import re
from html import unescape

import feedparser
from desktop_notifier import DesktopNotifier


RSS_FEED_URL = "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml"
MAX_HEADLINES = 5
DELAY_SECONDS = 2

notifier = DesktopNotifier(app_name="News Notifier")


def clean_text(value):
    """Remove HTML tags and clean the text."""
    text = re.sub(r"<[^>]+>", " ", value or "")
    text = unescape(text)
    return re.sub(r"\s+", " ", text).strip()


async def main():
    try:
        feed = feedparser.parse(RSS_FEED_URL)

    except Exception as error:
        print(f"Error retrieving news: {error}")
        return

    if not feed.entries:
        print("No headlines found.")
        print("Check your internet connection or RSS feed URL.")
        return

    headlines = feed.entries[:MAX_HEADLINES]

    print(f"Found {len(headlines)} news headlines.\n")

    for entry in headlines:
        title = clean_text(entry.get("title", "News Update"))
        summary = clean_text(entry.get("summary", ""))

        if not title:
            title = "News Update"

        if not summary:
            summary = "Open the news website to read the full story."

        try:
            await notifier.send(
                title=title,
                message=summary[:250]
            )

            print(f"Notification requested: {title}")

        except Exception as error:
            print(f"Could not display notification: {error}")


        await asyncio.sleep(DELAY_SECONDS)

    print("\nNews notification process completed.")


if __name__ == "__main__":
    try:
        asyncio.run(main())
    except KeyboardInterrupt:
        print("\nProgram stopped by the user.")

Output

Found 5 news headlines.

Notification requested: [Latest news headline]
Notification requested: [Second news headline]
Notification requested: [Third news headline]
Notification requested: [Fourth news headline]
Notification requested: [Fifth news headline]
News notification process completed.