I have noticed that when I send a push notification (Firebase Messaging Service) to my device my Application object is created. This is without clicking on the notification. Simply the act of viewing the notification creates the application. Further, it also starts the Jetpack AppStartup library. I want to be able to use AppStartup and application create. But I don't want to launch that code when a push notification occurs.
Why does Android do this? Is this part of all android notification, or is it a feature of the third-party push notification sdk I am using? And is there a way in Application.create and AppStartup to distinguish a normal app launch from a push notification triggered launch?
Again, I'm not talking about the user clicking on the notification (and launching the app because of a deeplink). I'm talking about just looking at the notification in the notification dropdown.
Why does Android do this?
Android is starting your app process to run code in your app. Creating an Application instance and calling onCreate() will be part of that, as will creating any ContentProvider objects. IIRC, Jetpack Startup uses a ContentProvider to get control early in your process, though I am not 100% certain of that.
The reason why Android is starting your app process is because your app is causing the Notification to be displayed — specifically, Firebase Cloud Messaging is doing that. If I remember the protocol correctly, Play Services is sending a broadcast Intent that Firebase Cloud Messaging in your app will respond to, and part of that code will be displaying the Notification.
And is there a way in Application.create and AppStartup to distinguish a normal app launch from a push notification triggered launch?
onCreate() of an Application subclass has no means of knowing what specifically caused the process to be created, as there can be many possible reasons. If by "AppStartup" you mean Jetpack Startup, I do not recall it having any options here, but I have not spent much time with its API.
Related
We have been trying for the last two weeks to get a reliable solution to try and sync our app data with a server in the background. We have tried the Background fetch mechanism but due to the iOS restrictions on when it runs it is not a viable solution.
iOS does provide Remote Notifications (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/setting_up_a_remote_notification_server/pushing_background_updates_to_your_app?language=objc) that we would like to use as we can use the same mechanism on Android.
The issues is that when sending a type 2 notification CN1 only delivers the notification when the app is brought to the foreground by the user.
On Android I see there is a Build Hint for android.background_push_handling that allows the notifications to be sent to the app even if it is in the background.
Is there a similar build hint that we can use for iOS?
If not, is there a way then to override the application:didReceiveRemoteNotification:fetchCompletionHandler: method that fires when the Notification arrives so that we can forward it to our app?
You can use silent push notifications for that purpose. To send a silent push notification you just have to include "content-available" : 1" into the body of the notification. More info on that here: Apple docs-silent push notifications
You should bear in mind that this will only work when your app is in the background, it won't work when the app is killed. When the app is killed the only solution is standard push notifications, unless your app has VoIP functionality, in which case you are allowed to use PushKit framework (if you use it in an app without VoIP functionality, you won't get pass the AppStore).
My project is based on jitsi meet for android. I'm planning to go with react-native and firebase. The requirement is if one person calls the other person they will receive a call screen with ringtone. How can I achieve this if the app is not running in background?
This is a very tricky solution that you're trying to implement, especially it's working will vary a lot when it comes to deploying the application on Chinese OEM apps.
The process that you could instead follow is, Listen for FCM notifications along with that attach a payload to validate what kind of push notification is it. Based on that if it's a push notification for an incoming call, you can launch a foreground service which will allow your app to stay active and at the same time use a custom Broadcast Receiver. The Broadcast Receiver will receiver a trigger from your FCM Service and that will be used to open an activity that has your call screen UI.
Feel free to connect for a any help needed.
Using FCM, if there's a push notification, app automatically opens even if its not in background. But i believe you need to pass url on click of push notification of which triggers Deeplinking to actually trigger that page when the app opens, so directly it would navigate to the jitsi call page.
Check this link rn - deep link
Hope it helps. feel free for doubts
I'm developing viber like application using the ionic framework.
I want my app to be able to receive calls even when its on the background, just like whatsapp, the incoming call screen will pop up even if whatsapp is on the background or even when there is no instance of it at all.
I wasn't able to find anything about it.
I'm afraid there's no other way to achive this, then using Google Cloud Messaging (GCM). Although there may be other services that do the same.
When using GCM, your app will be notified with a notification even if it is not running.
But be careful! As your using Ionic, you will most likely rely on a cordova plugin to receive the notifications that are pushed to your device via GCM.
It depends on the chosen plugin how it handles the incoming notification.
I'm trying to build a GCM notification listener, which will basically use the notification to flag the user that some operation should be made (which involve communicating with my remote App-Server).
I assumed that I should create a UI-less application running on the device's startup and listen to the GCM notifications and issue the internal android notification. When the user opens the notification an activity will be opened which will do the rest of the job with the remote App-Server.
Looking at notification examples it seems to me that I may be missing some basic understanding since all te examples which I had found use a UI application to manipulate the notifications.
What do I miss?
The common use case for handling of GCM messages in Android apps is as follows :
Your app registers to GCM upon startup and sends the registration ID to your server.
Your server sends a GCM message to your app.
You app receives the message in a broadcast receiver, which usually starts an intent service.
The intent service usually displays a notification to the user.
The user taps the notification, which starts an activity of the app.
You can see this use case implemented in the official GCM demo and in many other examples.
The fact that the app you wish to develop has no UI doesn't prevent you from implementing the exact same use case.
I have implemented Parse notification in my app. I have put the initialization call in the app.onCreate().
When the app is running, it works perfectly. However, if the app is killed, I find that the notifications are not coming through.
Has anyone seen this?
If the app is force stopped, Google Cloud Messaging won't work until the app is launched again by the user. That's the behavior since Android 3+ (don't remember the exact version).
If the app runs in the background or is stopped implicitly by the OS (to free memory), GCM will work.
Parse push notifications would behave the same, since they use GCM.