# Notifications Notifying users about errors, action statuses, or other events without interrupting their workflow by showing modal message boxes requiring confirmation. **UI Guidelines:** [](notification_types.md) One of the leading design principles is avoiding the use of modal message boxes for notifying the user about errors and other situations that may warrant the user's attention. As a replacement, the IntelliJ Platform provides multiple non-modal notification UI options. ### Dialogs **UI Guidelines:** [](validation_errors.md) When working in a dialog, do not check the validity of the input and notify the user about invalid data with a modal dialog when the OK button is pressed. Instead, use [`DialogWrapper.doValidate()`](%gh-ic%/platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/ui/DialogWrapper.java) described in the [Dialogs](dialog_wrapper.md#input-validation) section. ### Editor Hints For actions invoked from the editor (such as refactorings, navigation actions, and different code insight features), the best way to notify the user about the inability to perform an action is to use the [`HintManager`](%gh-ic%/platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/codeInsight/hint/HintManager.java) class. Its method `showErrorHint()` displays a floating popup above the editor which is automatically hidden when the user starts performing another action in the editor. Other [`HintManager`](%gh-ic%/platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/codeInsight/hint/HintManager.java) methods can be used for displaying other kinds of non-modal notification hints over an editor. ### Editor Banner **UI Guidelines:** [](banner.md) Notifications that appear at the top of the file editor are a great way to ask the user to take an important action that would otherwise impede their experience if ignored (e.g., missing SDK, setup/project configuration requiring user input). Register an implementation of [`EditorNotificationProvider`](%gh-ic%/platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/ui/EditorNotificationProvider.java) using . If access to indexes is not required, it can be marked [dumb-aware](indexing_and_psi_stubs.md#DumbAwareAPI). A commonly used UI implementation is [`EditorNotificationPanel`](%gh-ic%/platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/ui/EditorNotificationPanel.java). ### "Got It" Notification {id="gotIt"} **UI Guidelines:** [](got_it_tooltip.md) Use to highlight important new/changed features via [`GotItTooltip`](%gh-ic%/platform/platform-impl/src/com/intellij/ui/GotItTooltip.kt). ### Top-Level Notifications (Balloons) {id="balloons"} **UI Guidelines:** [](balloon.md) **Product Help**: [Notifications](https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/notifications.html) The most general way to display non-modal notifications is to use the [`Notifications`](%gh-ic%/platform/ide-core/src/com/intellij/notification/Notifications.java) class. It has two main advantages: * The user can control the way each notification type is displayed under Settings | Appearance & Behavior | Notifications * All displayed notifications are gathered in the Notifications tool window and can be reviewed later > See [](tool_windows.md#tool-window-notification) for showing balloons for a specific tool window. The specific method used to display a notification is [`Notifications.Bus.notify()`](%gh-ic%/platform/ide-core/src/com/intellij/notification/Notifications.java). If the current Project is known, please use overload with the ` Project ` parameter, so the notification is shown in its associated frame. The text of the notification can include HTML tags for presentation purposes. Use `Notification.addAction(AnAction)` to add links below the content, use [`NotificationAction`](%gh-ic%/platform/ide-core/src/com/intellij/notification/NotificationAction.java) for convenience. The `groupId` parameter of the [`Notification`](%gh-ic%/platform/ide-core/src/com/intellij/notification/Notification.java) constructor specifies a notification type. The user can choose the display type corresponding to each notification type under Settings | Appearance & Behavior | Notifications. To specify the preferred display type, you need to use [`NotificationGroup`](%gh-ic%/platform/ide-core/src/com/intellij/notification/NotificationGroup.kt) to create notifications. `NotificationGroup` is registered in [plugin.xml](plugin_configuration_file.md) using the . Use `key` to provide a localized group display name. ```xml ``` Registered instances can then be obtained via their `id`. > Code insight is available for parameters expecting a notification group `id`. > ```java public class MyNotifier { public static void notifyError(Project project, String content) { NotificationGroupManager.getInstance() .getNotificationGroup("Custom Notification Group") .createNotification(content, NotificationType.ERROR) .notify(project); } } ```