Notification.dir

The dir read-only property of the Notification interface indicates the text direction of the notification, as specified in the dir option of the Notification() constructor.

Note: This feature is available in Web Workers.

Syntax

var direction = Notification.dir;

Value

A DOMString specifying the text direction. Possible values are:

  • auto: adopts the browser's language setting behaviour (the default.)
  • ltr: left to right.
  • rtl : right to left.

Note: Most browsers seem to ignore explicit ltr and rtl settings, and just go with the browser-wide setting.

Examples

The following snippet fires a notification; a simple options object is created, then the notification is fired using the Notification() constructor.

var options = {
  body: 'Do you like my body?',
  dir: 'rtl'
}

var n = new Notification('Test notification',options);

n.dir // should return 'rtl'

Specifications

Specification Status Comment
Notifications API
The definition of 'dir' in that specification.
Living Standard Living standard

Browser compatibility

Feature Chrome Firefox (Gecko) Internet Explorer Opera Safari
Basic support 5 webkit (see notes)
22
4.0 moz (see notes)
22
Not supported 25 6 (see notes)
Available in workers ? 41.0 (41.0) ? ? ?
Feature Android Android Webview Firefox Mobile (Gecko) Firefox OS IE Mobile Opera Mobile Safari Mobile Chrome for Android
Basic support ?

(Yes)

4.0 moz (see notes)
22
1.0.1 moz (see notes)
1.2
Not supported ? Not supported

(Yes)

Available in workers ? ? 41.0 (41.0) ? ? ? ? ?

Firefox OS notes

  • Prior to Firefox 22 (Firefox OS <1.2), the instantiation of a new notification must be done with the navigator.mozNotification object through its createNotification method.
  • Prior to Firefox 22 (Firefox OS <1.2), the Notification was displayed when calling the show method and supported only the click and close events.
  • Nick Desaulniers wrote a Notification shim to cover both newer and older implementations.
  • One particular Firefox OS issue is that you can pass a path to an icon to use in the notification, but if the app is packaged you cannot use a relative path like /my_icon.png. You also can't use window.location.origin + "/my_icon.png" because window.location.origin is null in packaged apps. The manifest origin field fixes this, but it is only available in Firefox OS 1.1+. A potential solution for supporting Firefox OS <1.1 is to pass an absolute URL to an externally hosted version of the icon. This is less than ideal as the notification is displayed immediately without the icon, then the icon is fetched, but it works on all versions of Firefox OS.
  • When using notifications  in a Firefox OS app, be sure to add the desktop-notification permission in your manifest file. Notifications can be used at any permission level, hosted or above.
    "permissions": {
        "desktop-notification":{}
    }

Chrome notes

Safari notes

  • Safari started to support notification with Safari 6, but only on Mac OSX 10.8+ (Mountain Lion).

See also

Document Tags and Contributors

 Contributors to this page: chrisdavidmills, jpmedley, fscholz, jsx, kscarfone, Jeremie
 Last updated by: chrisdavidmills,