I have a small shell script, written in bash, that should show an OSD notification (similar to what a video player would). This script will be used within a Cinnamon DE. (But a generic solution is of course better.)
Currently, I’m using zenity --notification, but that has the problem (as does notify-send) that it ends up permanently in the notifications, under the bell icon next in the task bar tray. Forcing the user to clear it, or lose the ability to glance if one was notified (e.g. while away) by looking at the tray.
The --timeout=… option does nothing for --notification, except delay the exit of zenity. And zenity --info --timeout=… …, while almost fitting the bill, has an OK button, which in combination with the timeout leads to accidental clicking or space bar pressing for the program that gets the focus when the info dialog is closed by the timeout at the same time.
Also, both don’t look particularly like an OSD. (White or green text with a transparent background, preferably with a contrasting outline or even better a contrasting outer glow.)
So the most generic desktop-environment-independent actual OSD solution would be preferred. If I have to do the timeout myself, that’s OK. If you have a script, that’s fine too. I want to avoid writing a full program for this though. :)
