WinToast

WinToast is a lightweight library written in C++ which brings a complete integration of the modern toast notifications of Windows 8, Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Toast notifications allow your app to inform the users about relevant information and timely events that they should see and take action upon inside your app, such as a new instant message, a new friend request, breaking news, or a calendar event.

• WinToast
• Toast Templates
• Event Handler
• Notification Content
• Error Handling
• Example of Usage
• Installation
• Toast configuration on Windows 10
• Projects using WinToast

Toast Templates

WinToast integrates all standard templates available in the ToastTemplateType enumeration.

| Template | Description | Example | | :------- | ----: | :---: | | ImageAndText01 | A large image and a single string wrapped across three lines of text. | | | ImageAndText02 | A large image, one string of bold text on the first line, one string of regular text wrapped across the second and third lines. | | | ImageAndText03 | A large image, one string of bold text wrapped across the first two lines, one string of regular text on the third line. | | | ImageAndText04 | A large image, one string of bold text on the first line, one string of regular text on the second line, one string of regular text on the third line. | | | Text01 | Single string wrapped across three lines of text. | | | Text02 | One string of bold text on the first line, one string of regular text wrapped across the second and third lines. | | | Text03 | One string of bold text wrapped across the first two lines, one string of regular text on the third line. | | | Text04 | One string of bold text on the first line, one string of regular text on the second line, one string of regular text on the third line. | |

Example of a ImageAndText02 template:

WinToastTemplate templ = WinToastTemplate(WinToastTemplate::ImageAndText02);
templ.setTextField(L"title", WinToastTemplate::FirstLine);
templ.setTextField(L"subtitle", WinToastTemplate::SecondLine);
templ.setImagePath(L"C:/example.png"); 

Note: The user can use the default system sound or specify a sound to play when a toast notification is displayed. Same behavior for the toast notification image, by default Windows try to use the app icon.*

Event Handler

WinToast handles different events:

• Activated: Occurs when user activates a toast notification through a click or touch. Apps that are running subscribe to this event
• Dismissed: Occurs when a toast notification leaves the screen, either by expiring or being explicitly dismissed by the user.
  • Application Hidden: The application hid the toast using ToastNotifier.hide.
  • User Canceled: The user dismissed the toast.
  • Timed Out: The toast has expired
• Failed: Occurs when an error is caused when Windows attempts to raise a toast notification.

Create your custom handler to interact with the user actions by subclassing the interface IWinToastHandler:

class WinToastHandlerExample : public IWinToastHandler {
 public:
	WinToastHandlerExample(); 
	// Public interfaces
	void toastActivated() const override;
	void toastActivated(int actionIndex) const override;
	void toastDismissed(WinToastDismissalReason state) const override;
	void toastFailed() const override;
 };

Notification Content

The full documentation of the notification content here.

Scenario

To create important notifications, alarms, reminders, and incoming call notifications, you simply use a normal app notification with a Scenario value assigned to it. The scenario adjusts a few behaviors to create a consistent and unified user experience. There are four possible Scenario values:

• Reminder
• Alarm
• IncomingCall
• Urgent

Expiration Time

Set the time after which a toast notification is no longer considered current or valid and should not be displayed. Windows attempts to raise toast notifications immediately after you call Show, so this property is rarely used.

For Windows 8.x app, this property also causes the toast notification to be removed from the Action Center once the specified data and time is reached.

Note: Default Windows behavior is to hide notification automatically after time set in Windows Ease of Access Settings. If you need to preserve notification in Windows Action Center for longer period of time, you have to call WinToastTemplate::setExpiration method.

Hint Crop

Microsoft style guidelines recommend representing profile pictures with a circular image to provide a consistent representation of people across apps and the shell. Set the HintCrop property to Circle to render the image with a circular crop.

WinToastTemplate templ = WinToastTemplate(WinToastTemplate::ImageAndText02);
templ.setTextField(L"Matt sent you a friend request", WinToastTemplate::FirstLine);
templ.setTextField(L"Hey, wanna dress up as wizards and ride around on hoverboards?", WinToastTemplate::SecondLine);
templ.setImagePath(L"C:/example.png");
templ.setHintCrop(WinToastTemplate::Circle);

Hero Image

The hero image is a large image that appears at the top of a toast notification. The hero image is optional and can be used to provide additional context to the user.

Note: The hero image is not supported on Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1.

WinToastTemplate templ = WinToastTemplate(WinToastTemplate::ImageAndText02);
templ.setTextField(L"Mary Anne", WinToastTemplate::FirstLine);
templ.setTextField(L"Check out where we camped last night!", WinToastTemplate::SecondLine);
templ.setHeroImagePath(L"C:/example.png");

The hero image is specified by calling the WinToastTemplate::setHeroImagePath method. The image path can be a local file path or a URI.

Inline Image

The second parameter of the method WinToastTemplate::setHeroImagePath is a boolean value that specifies whether the image should be inlined in the toast notification.

WinToastTemplate templ = WinToastTemplate(WinToastTemplate::ImageAndText01);
templ.setTextField(L"Feature image of the day", WinToastTemplate::FirstLine);
templ.setHeroImagePath(L"C:/example.png", true);

Actions

You can add your own actions, this fact allows you to interact with users in a different way:

WinToastTemplate templ = WinToastTemplate(WinToastTemplate::ImageAndText01);
templ.setTextField(L"New product in stock", WinToastTemplate::FirstLine);

std::vector<std::wstring> actions;
actions.push_back(L"See more details");
actions.push_back(L"Remind me later");
// ...

for (auto const &action : actions) {
    templ.addAction(action);
}
WinToast::instance()->showToast(templ, handler) 

Attribution text

New in Anniversary Update: If you need to reference the source of your content, you can use attribution text. This text is always displayed below any text elements, but above inline images. The text uses a slightly smaller size than standard text elements to help distinguish from regular text elements.

WinToastTemplate templ = WinToastTemplate(WinToastTemplate::Text02);
templ.setTextField(L"Mary Anne", WinToastTemplate::FirstLine);
templ.setTextField(L"Check out where we camped last night!", WinToastTemplate::SecondLine);
templ.setHeroImagePath(L"C:/example.png");
templ.setAttributionText(L"Via SMS");

Duration

The amount of time the toast should display. This attribute can have one of the following values: - System: default system configuration. - Short: default system short time configuration. - Long: default system long time configuration.

Audio Properties

You can modify the different behaviors of the sound: - Default: plays the audio file just one time. - Silent: turn off the sound. - Loop: plays the given sound in a loop during the toast existence.

WinToast allows the modification of the default audio file. Add the given file to your project's resources (must be ms-appx:// or ms-appdata:// path) and define it by calling: WinToastTemplate::setAudioPath

***By default, WinT