Disabling Notification Center?

Hey, I don't actually have ML yet and don't plan to ever install it unless it's at least faster than Lion, so I'm unable to actually look for myself about this question.

Even if it's faster than Lion, I'm not very enthusiastic about how Apple is trying to turn something that's meant to run on full computers into more of something you see on phones.

Anyways, ranting aside, is there a way to disable Notification Center?

This is almost a 2 part question. Let me explain.

I want to disable it if possible because I assume it will take extra CPU and RAM, for what I assume is a process that it will run which checks/listens for new things to display. I'm not entirely sure how well Apple's implementation works for this, but good or not, it it takes anymore than a megabyte or two of RAM and an unnoticeable amount of CPU, then I won't like it running on my computer.

See, I really like Growl. I prefer it's style much more than what I've seen of Notification Center. The idea of a notification system, like Growl or Notification Center is really a good idea. But for me, Apple's version is more like good idea, bad execution. It just doesn't look too nice for me, I don't like that it slides out from the side of the screen, and I really don't like that it doesn't just show a small little window type thing that shows over your current work like Growl does.

Anyways, like I said, I like Growl. NC was a good idea, I just don't really like the way that it looks and works.

So, if I ever did run Mountain Lion, I'd be using Growl anyways. I want to know if I can turn NC off so that I'm not running 2 different notification systems, one of which I don't even want.

And not to be rude, but keep your comments about learning to use NC, or leaving it alone or whatever, keep them away. I am very OCD about resource usage. If something doesn't need to be running, I don't want it running.




That was rather long. That though, is my explanation of why I'd want to disable it. So here's the 2 part question.

One, can I disable it somehow, either through a switch in System Preferences, or some command, or by editing a file?

Some of you may be aware that you can actually disable Spotlight. You have the choice to unload the mds LaunchDaemon, or to turn indexing off with the mdutil command.

What I am asking is if there's a similar way to turn off NC. Is it loaded as a LaunchDaemon, or can I use a command to stop it? Anyone who knows or has the ability to look into it, I'd like to know.





The second part is, how much CPU and RAM has anyone observed it using at any one time? I know ML is still in developer preview, but if NC doesn't actually use too much CPU or RAM, I might not mind it.









I know I wrote a really long thing. Sorry, gotta break that habit. Here's a TL;DR for you:
1) Can I disable Notification Center somehow? Please check if it's loaded by a LaunchDaemon or if there's a command to somehow turn it off like there is with mds if you don't mind.
2) How much CPU and RAM has anyone observed it using?

Thanks!

Cougarcat said:

You can turn off alerts for everything, so it effectively does nothing. I don't know if you can disable it completely.

I don't understand why you'd want to use Growl instead of this (once it has as much third-party support, but even then, Growl can "plug into" NC) because honestly, NC is way better. You don't have to ever view the slide-out view if you don't want to. But each to their own, I suppose.

There is a negligible difference between GrowlHelperApp and NotificationCenter. On my 13" MBP, Growl (1.2.2) is using 9.3 MB, 0% CPU, 5 threads. NC (with all alerts on) is using 0% CPU, 3 threads, and 12.8 MB.

Click to expand...

Is there a mode where NC operates similarly to Growl? With the pop-overs? Little transparent windows that show over your current work?

I mainly like Growl for it's Skype support. Growl tells me who sent me a message, and what the message says. If I click it, then Skype pops up and takes me directly to the chat with the person.

But for me, Skype will never support NC. Skype may support it in the future, but I continue running Skype 2.8 since I hate Skype 5.0 with a fury. Without going into it too much, Skype 5's interface is just totally stupid if you ask me. It's like the Windows interface, which I never liked because of the whole one-window layout thing.

Anyways, I like Skype 2.8 for a few reasons. Performance wise, it's less of a resource hog and doesn't have any memory leaks I've ever spotted, while Skype 5 does.

So since my main use of Growl is for Skype, while I do use it for it's support of other things, but Skype is what pops up in my Growl most often (I'm a heavy Skype user), I need Growl to keep notification support for Skype 2.8.

Don't even mention "upgrading" (downgrading in my eyes) to Skype 5, it's not even a possibility unless they bring back the classic interface, which they probably won't.



Thanks for posting the resource info on NC though. Since it's pretty much the same as Growl, I would not mind it if it functioned for me.

Another question I guess. I said this at the top of this post, but just to bring it back up. Does NC have a mode where you don't have to ever look at that slide out panel? Can it make pop-over notifications similar to Growl's? And could you post a screenshot then?

Anyways, I'm still looking to disable it. Even though it's about the same usage as Growl, it'd be like running 2 instances of Growl, which I wouldn't want when I only need Growl and not NC.

Can you inspect it a bit for me? Find out what it's a child of, tell me if there's a LaunchDaemon, or anything else you think of / know of? I searched Google real quick and can only find information on NC, nothing about how to disable it.

If you do end up looking into it for me on your computer, thanks!

newagemac said:

The notifications in Notification Center do show up as "popovers". It's not just the panel that slides into view. When a notification comes in, that notification shows up similar to growl. And you can set each apps notifications to be either alerts or banners. Banners fade away after a couple of seconds automatically. Alerts require you to close them.

The panel that slides in from the right is only for when you want to see all of your notifications. It's similar to how iOS handles it and works very well.

Notification Center really is better than Growl in pretty much every way.

Click to expand...

Not to be rude, but don't tell me it's better. It was like when my friends jumped to upgrade their computers to Lion and said that Mission Control was so much better than Spaces + Expose and that Launchpad was so cool. Those particular friends are easily entertained though. No matter what anyone says, Launchpad isn't really a good idea. The Dock pretty much exists for you to put your frequently used applications in it. Anything that you don't use frequently, it's not that much of a hassle to access it from the Applications folder. Command + Shift + A, hit the first 3 letters or so of what you want, it selects it, then Command + O to open. It's actually a lot faster than Launchpad.

Launchpad rant aside though, onto Mission Control. This is essentially a reinvent of Spaces and Expose. It's useful and has it's place on a computer OS, unlike Launchpad, something which only has a place on an iPhone. But this is really an opinion based thing. I personally preferred Spaces + Expose far more than Mission Control. MC is a lot less usable and takes a lot longer to switch through windows, and it's practically killed Spaces since you can no longer go up and down with Control + Arrows but only side to side.

Short bit on auto save too, this thing is just plain insulting. It's intrusive and seems to think it knows how to operate your computer better than you do. It really is an insult to pro users. I wish there were a way to turn it off. I haven't actually looked into it, but there might be a way.

Rants aside now. The "major features" that Apple introduces lately aren't really to my liking. If they stay out of my way (non intrusive, don't take up resources, etc) then they're fine. Launchpad for example, stays out of my way. Mission Control (since I'm a heavy Expose user) does not.


I also simply don't like the feeling that I'm using mobile-operating-system-esque features on my computer. Windows 8 takes this to an unbearable extent with the whole replacing of the start menu with the metro tiles thing. That must be the worst change I've ever seen made to an OS, and is yet another reason I don't use Windows.




Sorry for that being a bit long, but I kind of wanted to explain my reason for not liking it. By far the biggest reason of all though, is that I doubt Skype 2.8 and Notification Center will ever work together. I might move to NC if it did everything Growl did and supported all the things I use, but I doubt it'll support Skype 2.8, the most important thing of all.

I'll agree that Apple's notifications work well on iDevices. Their implementation on Mac OS X seems to be okay from what I've seen and heard.

I looked at some more screenshots and it actually looks nice. Apple has always done that though. Mission Control for example, looks real nice, but isn't real productive or usable. The old Expose method in Leopard of simply separating all windows in a space didn't look as nice, but it was very usable.

Apple makes things that look nice. Lately, their nice looking things haven't been so usable, they're just flashy. NC though appears to be to my liking. I'll end up testing it on Apple Store computers when ML is out, and I assume it'll be to my liking.

The only thing stopping me from using it will be that it doesn't integrate with Skype 2.8.






So back to my original question. How is NC loaded and how can I disable it? If it's a simple LaunchDaemon, fantastic! If it's more complicated but can be turned off through a command, just as good!

Cougarcat said:

They pretty much fixed Mission Control's number one flaw for me, and that was the lack of all-window expose. Now you can select an option that will ungroup the windows so they don't overlap.I would have preferred all-window expose as a separate view, but it's better than nothing.

Click to expand...

Are you talking about the App Expose that I've heard a lot about? If so, that's not really helpful. I rarely need to separate all the windows of only a single app, I need to separate all my windows.

If there's a way to separate every window, please tell me.

I love autosave. It was the best feature for Lion for me. Users shouldn't have to think about saving, IMO.

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Autosave is just ridiculous for me because of how I work. And no, I don't want to adapt the way I work. What I usually do if I want to change something, I open it up, make said changes, then hit Command + Shift + S (Save As) and choose where to save it. Original version stays intact and new version is created.

I remember trying to crop my friend's face out of a photo on his computer. He didn't have GIMP installed yet and wasn't aware that Preview had cropping functions (don't blame him, he had switched literally 3 days before that to Mac from Linux). So he's running Lion of course. I open up his photo, crop his face so only it's showing and not the rest of the photo. Try to go to Save As like an idiot forgetting it's not there, by the time I realized it wasn't there, it apparently decided to Autosave. I had now ruined his photo, leaving a picture of only his face, and felt like an idiot for seeming like I didn't know how to use a computer.

Anyways, I hate Autosave. It is insulting to professionals or anyone who's used to the "old way" of doing things.

That said, they have added some much-needed features to ML, so you might not hate it anymore. You can set to prompt if you want to discard/save changes on close now (I think that's the default) and they added save as back.

Click to expand...

That is great news for me. Especially the part about Save As.

Skype just released 5.8, and it fixed most of my complaints. You might want to give it another shot. You can finally hide the dumb history and the new contacts monitor is just like the old one.

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I've seen it. Still don't like it. I'll stick with Skype 2.8 until they add an option for "classic" (Skype 2.8) interface.

Yes, the UI is still too large, and there are no longer volume controls in the windows (they moved it to preferences...???) but it's faster than 2.8 ever was for me.

Click to expand...

That's a point of it for me which I didn't make. I feel like Skype 5 is an "Accessibility Enabled" version made for old people or something. All the UI design is too large for me, I prefer smaller elements, like in Skype 2.8.

I also just prefer the separate windows interface than the one-window style. If they've fixed their performance problems then that's great, but I still like Skype 2.8.

Also, it's just a matter of time before 2.8 breaks for good.

Click to expand...

Why would it break? It's a regular app and should continue to function for a long time. Either way, Skype 2.8 functions on Lion and will probably function on Mountain Lion I assume. Skype is a very large part of my computer use. Not the largest or most significant part, but communicating with people is important. Everyone I work with or talk to, I do it through Skype. Since Skype is so important and so frequently used, I'll have the interface I like with it. I'll stay on an old version of an OS if a new version won't support Skype 2.8.





Anyways, this is getting off topic. I'm still curious about my original question. Anyone mind poking around and seeing if Notification Center can be disabled somehow? Thanks.

Cougarcat said:

If you give me some instructions on how to find out if there's a LaunchDaemon, I'll do that for you.

Click to expand...

Alright thanks. Unless they changed the location of these folders, it'll be in one of these locations:

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ - Most likely location.
/Library/LaunchAgents/
/Library/LaunchDaemons
~/Library/LaunchAgents/

If anything, it should be in the top location. The two below it, it shouldn't be in, and it certainly shouldn't be in a user account directory, but the last 3 are just to be thorough more than anything else.

Look for any file that has Notification Center in the name or something that may be similar to it. Compare these folders to the ones in Lion as well (assuming you still have a Lion install) and see if anything different stands out.

Thanks by the way.

Cougarcat said:

Yes, you unselect "group windows by app" in system prefs, and all your windows are spread out and no longer overlapping in MC, just like the previous all window expose.

Click to expand...

Does this separate all windows when you hit the Expose button on your keyboard? Or does it still require some gesture to do this?

Cougarcat said:

In there I found this: com.apple.UserNotificationCenter.plist. Oddly, though, it's in Lion as well.

Click to expand...

Alright, this is somewhere to start I guess. I won't ask you to try disabling it though as it may prevent your computer from properly logging in or even booting. While you could fix it in Single User Mode (Console Mode), that's a whole different thing.

Unless you actually want to try disabling it for me. I'll look into this LaunchDaemon more before I tell you to do anything with it though.

Yes.

Click to expand...

That is actually great news. I looked into this and confirmed what it did for myself. This makes Mission Control usable for me now.

Comeagain? said:

That's just it. If you don't want to change, then don't. You seem incredibly stuck in your ways, and that's fine, but things are changing in the OS world, things that cause you to rethink your workflows, often for the better.

Good God. insulting? Really? Removing the need to constantly remember to save is insulting to you? And don't even get us started on professional or not. I've been using computers my ENTIRE LIFE. I've used both the autosave and non-automatic way, and I love not having to deal with file changes.

It can't be disabled, as it is part of the OS, but you can set all the apps to not have any sort of notification, and then not swipe to the left with two fingers from the edge of the trackpad to avoid opening the side panel. But that's it.

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Saving isn't something you remember to do, it's something you eventually get in the habit of doing. Though you use it in different ways for different situations. Read my explanation with cropping a photo in Preview above. That is a perfect example. You go to make changes, used to the old way of using Save As to create your new revision, but instead it decides to Auto Save.

While anyone could learn the new ways, Auto Save is like throwing dirt in your face for the fact that you don't like the new ways. The old ways were more efficient, made more sense when you were used to them, and were overall better as long as you came from them. Now of course if someone's first introduction to Mac OS was Lion, they're probably going to like that best. You can't like what you never had in the first place.

Now I know there's a work around. Just hold Alt and click and drag the file a bit, which will duplicate it inside the same location. Then open your duplicated version. Yeah, I know this, but I'm used to the Save As method and don't want to change it. Learning new habits is annoying, especially when you like your old habits, and feel that the requirement to learn new ones is at the responsibility of some ignorant developer's decision probably.


I've liked everything Apple has done, for the most part, for years. Certain things aren't always acceptable though. Apple is trying to force itself, and all Apple users, into the future too much. Some changes are okay, like the changes of the UI elements, buttons, tabs, window textures, etc. It's not exactly necessary, but it was a good refresh from what we'd seen in the past 2 OSes (Leopard and Snow Leopard) and the change was good in my eyes. Looked better than the old UI.

Changing the function of saving is not a necessary change though. Nobody had any problems with how it worked before. And with things like this, Apple needs to provide options. They need a way to disable Auto Save.






Also, @Cougarcat I looked into this LaunchDaemon. It's not what I thought. See if there is anything else that may be related to Notification Center in Mountain Lion please? This notifier handles things like the message that pops up when you unplug a USB drive without ejecting it.

newagemac said:

I'm what people would call a professional power user and my two favorite Lion features are Mission Control and autosave w/Resume. Since I'm a power user, I always have a TON of apps and windows open. In Snow Leopard's Expose' it was extremely slow, inefficient, and slow trying to switch between Windows among a sea of very tiny icons due to the number of them being open.

Click to expand...

Grouping them only lets you see the top one, and from what I've heard, using the option to "fan them out" only reveals a few extra pixels. While I agree having 50+ window thumbnails becomes impossible to work with, that is why Spaces works for organization.

It just comes down to what you like more. I liked the old way more. I know there's people saying I'm too stuck in my ways and that I don't want to adapt, and they are exactly correct.

I like my way of doing things, even if it's the "old" way. At my first try of the new way, it's slower for me. Understandable though. If I worked at it, I'd get faster. Do I want to though? Nope.

newagemac said:

Autosave and Resume has saved me a countless amount of time. I might have a ton of windows open but everything is usually neatly arranged into an efficient workspace. In Lion, I can shut down the computer and when I restart everything is exactly the way it was when I left so I can get to work sooner. As a professional, I don't have time to waste rearranging windows all the time. I have clients to get work done for and need efficiency and productivity.

Click to expand...

When I restart, I like to be on a clean slate. Nothing running, I start what I need. If you have everything open back up to how it was before, that's almost identical behavior to Sleep Mode, except shutting down and booting up takes longer than sleep.

And yes, I'm aware I can disable Resume. I plan to do just that. Whenever I quit Safari with 20 tabs open, I intend to be done with those tabs, or else I wouldn't have quit Safari. Having those 20 tabs open back up is unnecessary and makes me waste more time closing them.

newagemac said:

It sounds to me like your problem isn't efficiency but change. Let's look at the example you gave about Snow Leopard's Save As compared to Lion's Duplicate.

Snow Leopard:

1. Open File.
2. Make Changes.
3. "Save As" and choose where to save it. (original version stays intact and new version is created)


Lion:

1. Open File.
2. "Duplicate" and choose where to save it. (original version stays intact and new version is created)
3. Make Changes.


If you noticed, it is the same 3 steps. You're saying Snow Leopard is more efficient and Lion is somehow less "professional" and that new users will only like Lion because they never go to use Snow Leopard's better way but this illustrates that in fact the problem is just that you are used to the old way. Not that the old way was inherently better.

In fact, the old way has problems such as mistakenly overwriting a good file since you have to remember to do "Save As" instead of Save and you can lose work if you shutdown without saving, lose power, or the app crashes.

Whereas in Lion, you create the new file up front with Duplicate so there is no risk of overwriting the original. And autosave means you don't lose work when shutting down, in a power loss, or when apps crash. This is very important for professionals and multitasking power users.

As for the example you gave about your friend's photo, Lion asks you if you want to duplicate the file when you make changes and attempt to save it. You must have chosen no and unlocked the original for editing. Even so, you still could have used Lion's Versions feature (which works because of Autosave) to go back to how the file was originally. Again it sounds to me like its your particular inexperience with Lion rather than some inherent problem with how it works.

Click to expand...

I entirely understand what you're saying here. And I've actually done this with sensitive files that I don't want to mess up and I know I don't have a backup of. I make an extra copy, edit my copy, save my copy regularly. I realize this is a fragmented workflow since sometimes I do the "Lion way" naturally and other times I do the "Old way". I'm actually somewhat happy that this feature will get me into better habits.

Now that may not have made a lot of sense. Let me explain. I just said I'm happy the feature will help me get into better habits, but the reason I criticize it is because I don't like whenever Apple makes a change and wants to force you to use it. They should always have options to revert to the old way. Like to use the Classic Interface in Mail or to use the old non-grouping layout in Mission Control. Those were changes that they fortunately didn't force you to use.

I am happy though that Save As will be back in Mountain Lion, as it's important to me, and apparently lots of other people as well.

cmChimera said:

If you can't adapt your workflow at all, you're anything but a professional.

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I can adapt my workflow, I simply don't like to. I go by the general saying of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Nothing was wrong with Snow Leopard. It wasn't broken. Apple tried to improve it, but "tried" was the key word. If they ever make large changes like that again, they should have options to revert said changes to the "old way" of doing things.

canadianpj said:

Well you are being rude, sorry. He thinks it's better in his opinion. He's entitled to to say so.

This all seems like an awful lot of work to disable something that's integrated with the system rather than Growl. I've used Growl for many years now and it's out the window the moment 10.8 is installed.



Must be interesting to be your "friend" but do look up respecting other peoples opinions while you're at it. I would get more into all of your points, but would you respect my opinion on them anyway?

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Well I apologize then, my intention was not at all to be rude. I never said he's not entitled to his opinion though, I simply don't want him trying to take his opinion and say it's right, and to force it on me, saying I should learn new ways when my old ways had nothing wrong with them.

Part of the reason I don't like NC is that it is integrated. If I one day decide I don't like Growl, I can completely rip it out, not just turn off the notifications. If I turn off Growl's notifications, the GrowlHelper continues running, although no events will trigger a pop-over, so it's just pointlessly sitting there, eating resources. I don't care how small said resources may be, I like to have my system optimized to the max, nothing I don't need or want to weigh it down.

So if I don't want Growl one day, I don't just simply disable notifications in it and let it continue to run, I stop it, the process will stop running, and I can even uninstall it if I choose to.

I do respect people's opinions, to an extent. To respect, is not to agree, though.






Now I'm going to go off on a minirant here. People like you, naming no one person in particular, are what all the Windows users who criticize me for using a Mac speak of. They say anyone who uses a Mac blindly follows Apple, accepts whatever they do, degrades anyone who disagrees with decisions Apple has made, and things like that.

Again, naming no people in particular who may or may not have posted in this thread, between the down-votes of my posts, up-votes of posts telling me to basically get used to it and accept it, and the actual posts telling me to just leave it alone and accept it, saying it's better than Growl, etc. Yeah you all are the perfect example of what the aforementioned Windows users speak of when they criticize Mac users.

I did not come here for everyone to tell me to get used to it, that it's better than Growl, or to accept it.
I like what I like, and what I like is Growl, mostly because it integrates with Skype 2.8. Do not get me wrong, Notification Center actually looks nice, and once it gains 3rd party integration with apps like what Growl has already, it will certainly be a great thing. The fact that it will (most likely) never integrate with Skype 2.8 is the deal breaker for me. If someone wrote a hack to make it work with Skype 2.8 in the same fashion as Growl, I'd certainly use it though.

iindigo said:

For your friend's photo, you could have gotten the original back by simply selecting File > Revert Document… which brings up a Time Machine-like UI where you can select previous versions of the document. Every time a document is saved or autosaved, a restore point is created here.

In short, you wouldn't have had a problem if you had taken a moment to fully understand Lion's new workflow.

Don't get me wrong, I understand not wanting to change - especially after using Macs for over 15 years - but sometimes the problem is not the change but instead is your own inflexibility or unwillingness to learn.

Click to expand...

rcp27 said:

Part of the changes with Lion is that in addition to auto save, there is also versions. No matter when you made the changes to file, the original versoin stays intact. So do all the intermediate steps taken in creating the file. Unless you try really hard and deliberately delete older versions, the old version of the file is still there waiting for when you want to roll back to it.



So open the "ruined" file in preview, hit "versions", and roll back to before you "ruined" it. If you want to keep both versions, open the "ruined" one, do a "duplicate file", to create a copy, then on one or other of them, just roll back to the old, unmodified version. Simple.

Click to expand...

Okay see, that's half the problem in Lion for me is that my mind doesn't work in the way of Lion. I've adapted to the traditional way, which currently works on any computer.

Now I feel Apple almost added this Versions feature in order to cover for the mess ups that AutoSave was bound to create, but at least it worked. My friend apparently thought about Versions first though and never told me he got his original picture back.

The worst part is that I knew it was there, the Versions feature, but didn't even think to use it.

rcp27 said:

I can understand people being a bit reactionary and not wanting to try to learn how the new version works (remember all those OS9 die-hards back in the early days of OS X?). But it has always been Apple's way to question the established paradigm (users must actively save, and the save/save as distinction) to see if there might be a better way to deal with the problem. Once you've made the step to understand the new philosophy, there is so much more to like about it.

Click to expand...

Yeah I know, I remember so many people swore that they were going to stay on OS9 forever. But any Mac in frequent use these days is probably running Leopard or Tiger at the oldest.

Still, AutoSave is something that's going to be relatively useless for me considering my saving habits and workflow anyways. And if I learn a new workflow in the way of Lion, that workflow no longer exists on any older Macs (a small group of my friends plan to hold out at Snow Leopard as long as possible, and it's not uncommon when we collaborate that I hop on their computers to do some stuff for them) or Linux machines, which I frequently use.

I'm glad I'll have a 7200 RPM hard drive on my new computer so the pointless saves made to my files at least happen quick. I'd still prefer to control saving completely. Hopefully though Photoshop, probably one of the things that it's most important for me to control saving in, doesn't get/implement the AutoSave feature.

Of course I use my computer more than other people's or more than Linux machines, but I still don't like the idea that my workflow won't work on anything else. I was that way with Expose, but I actually liked Expose. It was very useful for me, and so much faster, I started hating every time I was in a sea of windows on a Linux or Windows server since I had to minimize, move, and look somewhat aimlessly through my windows for a second to get what I want. Before someone says it, yeah, I know, bad workflow. But I tend to open a ton of stuff all at once, I multitask pretty well. On Mac, Spaces and Expose let me separate the windows nicely for what I want and I can instantly find whichever one I need.