I wish to be able to push notifications from my own asp.net Web API REST service to be received by an Ionic 2 application, whether or not it is running, perhaps show a notification and then be able to click on this to open the Ionic2 application. I know nothing about Mobile notifications and want to know if I am on the right track.
I see there is an Ionic Native plugin here to enable the app itself to run in background, but going here for more information, there is the following statement...
Store Compliance ‼️
The plugin focuses on enterprise-only distribution and may not compliant with all public store vendors.
This makes me think I will have problem particularly with the apple store.
I then wondered if the other option is to run a separate service (perhaps using Xamarin as it seems to be able to do this) on the Android/iOS devices, send the notifications to this, and then have the service open the application perhaps using the Deep Linking
Alternatively, I found this article on something called PushSharp. I am a little confused with this as it used this library, and also seems to use SignalR (why both - not sure where the SignalR comes into it)
Also, is mentions "Google Cloud Messaging for Android". Even though I am sending notifications from me own server, is this something I use as an "in between", ie my server sends notifications via the "Google Cloud Messaging"?
Am I on the right track here, do I need a separate service, or the Mobile platforms have notifications built in, so I can use this can have this open my perhaps not running application?
Thanks in advance for any pointers here
Related
I am building my first Android app and need to know how I could use push notification.
My project is a home alarm system and also I have built my own local web server. Now I want to push a notification from my server to my Android app when an alarm appears in my server.
Currently my garage doors use the MyQ app and when the garage door opens or closes I get a notification on my phone, I want to implement the same thing in my app.
I've been reading about the Google Firebase Cloud Messaging but it seems exceeding my need.
If you need push notification on your cell phone then you definitely need to integrate your app with Google Firebase. (or at least that's the right way of doing it).
Alternatively, there is something called as local notifications & background process in Android you could do long polling to check if the garage door is open (probably every 2 mins or something). However, I don't recommend that as it can drain your mobile battery.
Also I recommend using Flutter as oppose to using Native Android. As there are some pre-built libraries for android and Google Firebase integration.
Take a look at this Youtube video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TSm2YGBT1s
Ouh, maybe thats a little bit too much for starting with android - nevertheless I want to help you.
You need a communication protocol between your server and your phone (i.e. Firebase as you mentioned or Websockets).
If your server sends a message to you client (your phone) you have to create a notification. (Android Developer Guide). That's the theoretical part. You will also stumble across a lot of
challenges with
asynchronous programming.
Firebase might actually be the simplest option. You could build your own web socket service too, but that would probably be more than you need. See this previous question for more options: Android push notification without firebase
Android has some services that communicate with firebase to receive notifications.
You'll need to implement a service on top of your web server (using backend languages such as Python, Node.js, PHP,...) so it can send notifications when an event happened (like the door closed) witch isn't a simple way for a beginner.
then your web server sends a message to firebase and tells it to send a notification to my client.
so I highly recommend using firebase because of the simplicity of usage. otherwise, you should implement a separate service on your android phone to get the notification (if you want to run it locally) also as explained do the backend side.
I want to create a notification system provider that is not based on Google services or similar. In fact, I want to get information about its overall architecture and needed Android sdk functionality.
The most weird point for me is to understand how to send a notification to an Android device.
I mean, how can I identify the Android device on which my application is installed from millions and millions of other Android devices on the Internet?
And how do I send information to him?
Should I use sockets for this or similar stuff?
simple answer: YOU CAN NOT
before everything else i should correct your question, pusher and FCM are not in the same group at all! you can build somthing like pusher or oneSignal or etc but you can not build something like FCM/APNS
you should understand three simple yet important sentences below:
when you want to pull anything from place_1(e.g. api) to place_2(e.g. browser_client) you most have an identifier of the place_1_resource (which commonly is the uniform-resource-locator of api)
when you want to push anything from place_1(e.g. notification_central_server) to place_2(cellphone_client) you most have an identifier of the place_2_resource
you must know the differences between a real server push with server-push-like technologies like long-pulling or ... and you should be aware that what is intended in this concept is a real server push not any kind of pulling with a push jacket!
if you don't have any identifier for a cellphone which you want to send it a notification, your server dont know where to send that notification so we need a resource_identifier_like for cellphones which is actually a device_token_like and you have just one approach to get this device_token_like and that is the FCM/APNS
FCM is like a dns server containing all identifiers of every android device that google supports (almost every android device) and APNS is just the same but for apple devices
note1: even if your app can obtain it's corresponding device device_token_like it can not be used for push notification if its not registered on FCM/APNS
so when you get that device_token_like identifier of your desired clinet_device now you can use different approaches for sending sth to that clinet_device. there are several approaches like SSE, Webpush, HTTP_server_push, Pushlet and etc but none of these approaches supported by mother_companies of these devices, the only approach that is completely supported and standard is the same approach that FCM/APNS official websites suggests
for example an iranian Incorporation named najva uses webpush to send notifications because of USA sanctions but webPush method works good on browsers and android devices but they didn't even apear on an apple devices
finally i should say that i admire your curiosity to less using anything from a benefit_based Inc. like FCM/APNS in your developing but i strongly recommend these articles and books for you cause i think you didn't learn enough:
wikipedia of push technology
story of some guy who tries to make his own push notification service
Push Technology A Complete Guide - 2020 Edition
Data Push Apps with HTML5 SSE
Short, direct answer
You can't (At least till you create your own ROM)
TL;DR, Reason why?
Before you build your own push notification server, you first need to know how it works internally in android.
Whenever you/your server sends a push notification message to the android client, the SDK processes it and shows you the notification. But when your app is not running (or being killed), your app cannot respond to it since it was not running. In such a case, your notification message is sent to a system service which is known as Google play service. For this even to work, you will first need to bind your app with Google play service and that is what FCM does. FCM SDK registers your app to the operating system service on the first initialization. That FCM service is opened to a port which listened to the incoming message from the server and when it receives the message, it publishes a notification on behalf of your app with a PendingIntent containing the data. Then the PendingIntent is delivered to your app when the user clicks it and then finally your app process the data (or the push message)
So basically, for your server to communicate with the client, It first needs to communicate with the FCM service and for that, FCM gives you a token which identifies the application to register with the internal Google play service.
Simplified furthermore, the workflow is as follows:-
Server send push message ---> FCM ---> Google play service,
If your app is running, it is directly handled by the client SDK So, Google play service --> Your app
If not, then it is delivered by the service itself using PendingIntent So, Google play service --> PendingIntent --->| Publish notification
Totally impossible, Workaround?
There is nothing like impossible because an absolute impossibility doesn't exist. Saying impossible generally means near to impossible. (This is similar to math where also we say tends to infinity because no one has achieved it yet).
To make it work, you need to somehow bind your app to the Google play service and you can't because Google hasn't exposed any direct API to do that. The only possible way is using the FCM ;-) (Bad luck again). So the only possible way is to build your own custom ROM with a custom push service that acts as a client for your Push server and a Server for your Push client (which is your app).
Since the above option tends to impossibility, you have to choose a workaround.
The best among the worst workarounds are:-
To make a malicious SDK.
Malicious because it needs to keep the app running in the background with a service that is connected to a WebSocket endpoint of your server. (Harder in new android versions).
Make use of a database where your push notification is saved and your app checks it periodically using AlarmManager.
Hope you have got the point.
I followed the google documents to create a progressive webapp and I've just implemented push notifications, however whenever I close the app I don't get any notifications.
Other apps like whatsapp seem to be able to send those notifications is there a difference between native notifications and gcm push notifications from a progressive webapp?
There absolutely no difference between the two, the rendering part is the same, it just that native ones are the notifications that comes from a apk generated app and the other one is rendered using google chrome or any web browser that support the functionality.
Beside the service worker with the help of manifest.json file will use the GCM ( Google Cloud Messaging) to send notifications to end users.
I worked and implemented such functionalities before, and I got my notification directly to the browser and my android phone as well, therefore I created a Github repo with nice documentation that simulate just that using Nodejs and simple web interface, please feel free to check I guess it holds what you seek :
Link : https://github.com/houssem-yahiaoui/webpush-notification
I've built an Android application by android studio.
I want to be associated with users online and notify changes and news.even when my application is closed.
This is what is on my mind,I have web server, i want create a internet connection listener and when connection is available,application or a part of it connect with the server and get new information and notify the user with a notification.even when my application is closed.
How can I implement and enforce it?
Try "Google Cloud Messaging."
Per their Developer Console Help page: "Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) is a free service that helps developers send messages across multiple platforms: Android, iOS, and Chrome. For example, a server can send messages directly to single devices, groups of devices, or devices subscribed to topics. Also, the application on a device can send messages directly to a server and to devices belonging to the same group."
Use the Google Cloud Messaging service alongside the Google Plugin for Eclipse. Google Cloud Platform explains as: "When targeting Android devices, it is easy to get started by using Google Plugin for Eclipse (GPE). GPE allows you to generate an App Engine Connected Android Project that provides the basic logic needed for sending push notifications using Google Cloud Messaging for Android from a mobile backend running on Google App Engine."
This could send messages for you without having to do the work on your own server. If this answer helped you, please consider up-voting or accepting it as the answer. Thanks, and best of luck on your project!
No,These systems are always some limitations and managed with others.I do not need to communicate with iOS or chrome ,I need to design a system that's all for me.Experience has shown me great services, such as Google services and any other company affected by political issues.for example i live in iran right now.
All production-oriented and knowledge-based services for this country is banned.
due to this problems i prefer to have my own messaging and notification system.
I'm making a NodeJS server and an Android app that goes with it. I need to send alerts to my mobile app users that's coming from the web server. Something like a a chat app on the server and the android users getting the messages also (Facebook messenger?).
I have the server ready and Android app communicating to its database (for user login/getting user info/etc) using REST. I just need to figure out how to send info to the Android app WITH THE SERVER INITIATING COMMUNICATION. Any advice on where to start?
Start by looking at Google Cloud Messaging.
It's a free service that accepts messages from your server-based program and queues it to be sent to phones with your app when the phones are online.
Here is the overview on Android Developers.
YES!
Working with NodeJS, you have probably already heard of Socket.IO.
I'd say: Start there!
For your app to communicate with the server, there's also the java lib. These are great tools to start making any good real time service.
After you get along with this, you should also check GCM as #krisLarson suggested. And talkign about GCM, you have Node-GCM to make your work even easier.
Good luck!