Escape ad unescape only the first character of a message if necessary.

Ruby/Gemfile

@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
-source :rubygems
+source 'https://rubygems.org'
 gemspec

Ruby/Gemfile.lock

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ PATH
     terminal-notifier (1.4.2)
 
 GEM
-  remote: http://rubygems.org/
+  remote: https://rubygems.org/
   specs:
     bacon (1.1.0)
     metaclass (0.0.1)

Ruby/lib/terminal-notifier.rb

@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+require 'shellwords'
+
 module TerminalNotifier
   BIN_PATH = File.expand_path('../../vendor/terminal-notifier/terminal-notifier.app/Contents/MacOS/terminal-notifier', __FILE__)
 
@@ -9,11 +11,8 @@ def self.available?
 
   def self.execute(verbose, options)
     if available?
-      command = [BIN_PATH, *options.map { |k,v| ["-#{k}", "\"#{v.to_s}\""] }.flatten]
-      if RUBY_VERSION < '1.9'
-        require 'shellwords'
-        command = Shellwords.shelljoin(command)
-      end
+      command = [BIN_PATH, *options.map { |k,v| v = v.to_s; ["-#{k}", "#{Shellwords.escape(v[0,1])}#{v[1..-1]}"] }.flatten]
+      command = Shellwords.join(command) if RUBY_VERSION < '1.9'
       result = ''
       IO.popen(command) do |stdout|
         output = stdout.read

Ruby/spec/terminal-notifier_spec.rb

@@ -9,14 +9,11 @@
 require 'terminal-notifier'
 
 describe "TerminalNotifier" do
-  it "executes the tool with the given options" do
-    command = [TerminalNotifier::BIN_PATH, '-message', '"ZOMG"']
-    if RUBY_VERSION < '1.9'
-      require 'shellwords'
-      command = Shellwords.shelljoin(command)
-    end
+  it "executes the tool with the given options and properly escapes the message" do
+    command = [TerminalNotifier::BIN_PATH, '-message', '\[ZOMG] "OH YEAH"']
+    command = Shellwords.join(command) if RUBY_VERSION < '1.9'
     IO.expects(:popen).with(command).yields(StringIO.new('output'))
-    TerminalNotifier.execute(false, :message => 'ZOMG')
+    TerminalNotifier.execute(false, :message => '[ZOMG] "OH YEAH"')
   end
 
   it "returns the result output of the command" do

Terminal Notifier.xcodeproj/xcshareddata/xcschemes/Terminal Notifier.xcscheme

@@ -88,11 +88,15 @@
          </CommandLineArgument>
          <CommandLineArgument
             argument = "-title Kicker"
-            isEnabled = "YES">
+            isEnabled = "NO">
+         </CommandLineArgument>
+         <CommandLineArgument
+            argument = "-message &apos;\\[Execute] rake spec&apos;"
+            isEnabled = "NO">
          </CommandLineArgument>
          <CommandLineArgument
             argument = "-message &apos;Execute: rake spec&apos;"
-            isEnabled = "YES">
+            isEnabled = "NO">
          </CommandLineArgument>
          <CommandLineArgument
             argument = "-activate com.apple.Safari"

Terminal Notifier/AppDelegate.m

@@ -33,13 +33,14 @@ - (NSString *)__bundleIdentifier;
 }
 
 
-@interface NSUserDefaults (Subscript)
-@end
-
-@implementation NSUserDefaults (Subscript)
+@implementation NSUserDefaults (SubscriptAndUnescape)
 - (id)objectForKeyedSubscript:(id)key;
 {
-  return [self objectForKey:key];
+  id obj = [self objectForKey:key];
+  if ([obj isKindOfClass:[NSString class]] && [(NSString *)obj hasPrefix:@"\\"]) {
+    obj = [(NSString *)obj substringFromIndex:1];
+  }
+  return obj;
 }
 @end
 
@@ -76,7 +77,10 @@ - (void)printHelpBanner;
          "       -execute COMMAND   A shell command to perform when the user clicks the notification.\n" \
          "\n" \
          "When the user activates a notification, the results are logged to the system logs.\n" \
-         "Use Console.app to view these logs.\n",
+         "Use Console.app to view these logs.\n" \
+         "\n" \
+         "Note that in some circumstances the first character of a message has to be escaped in order to be recognized.\n" \
+         "An example of this is when using an open bracket, which has to be escaped like so: ‘\\[’.\n",
          appName, appVersion, appName);
 }