Notifications and the bell

When someone shares a file with you, invites you to a meeting, or mentions you in a comment, Eigen tells you in one place. That place is the bell at the top of the screen, and it works the same way in every app.

The bell and the unread count

The bell sits in the top-right corner, next to your picture. When you have unread notifications, a small red count appears on it. The count covers every app at once, not only the one you are in, and it stops counting at 99+.

Click the bell to open the Notifications list. When there is nothing waiting, it says No notifications.

What a notification looks like

Each row in the list shows four things:

• The picture of the person who did it, with a small coloured badge for the app it came from.
• A line saying what happened, such as "New mail from Hanne Oberman" or "Hanne requested access".
• The thing itself below that: the subject of the email, the name of the file, the text of the message.
• How long ago it arrived.

Rows you have not read yet have a tinted background, so you can see at a glance what is new.

Open a notification

Click a row to go straight to what it is about. A shared file opens in its editor, an email opens in Mail, a mention opens the chat room or the comment thread at the right place, and a calendar invitation opens the month it falls in. Opening a notification marks that one as read.

One kind does not open. When someone takes your access to something away, there is nothing left to go to, so that row is not clickable.

Mark notifications as read

• Opening a notification marks it read.
• Click Mark all read at the top of the list to clear the count in one go. That button only appears while you have something unread.
• To remove a row without going anywhere, hover it and click the ✕ on the right.

What creates a notification

You get a notification when:

• Someone shares a file, folder, or calendar with you, or takes that access away again.
• Someone invites you to an event, changes it, or cancels it.
• New email arrives.
• Someone mentions you in a chat message or in a comment.
• Someone posts in a chat room you take part in, or replies in a comment thread you are part of.
• Someone assigns a comment to you.
• Someone asks for access to a file you own.
• Something changes in a file or folder you are watching.

You never get a notification for your own actions.

Watch a file or folder

Ordinary edits by other people don't notify you, because that would fill the bell in a day. If you do want to hear about a particular file or folder, open its menu in Drive and choose Watch, or click the bell icon in the toolbar while the document is open. You then get a notification when it changes, and Stop watching turns it off again. Everything you watch is listed under Watched in the Drive sidebar.

Pop-ups and the browser tab

While you have Eigen open, a new notification also appears as a short pop-up in the corner of the screen. It shows the same title and preview, with a View button that opens the item in a new tab.

The browser tab title carries the count too. With three unread notifications a Drive tab reads (3) eigen|drive>, so you can leave Eigen in the background and still spot when something arrives.