Hei,
I am trying to implement a feature (iOS 12+) which allows to deliver notifications silently without showing the Banner alert, but delivering it directly to the user's notification center. A bit like the new feature where a user can select that he wants to receive notifications from a specific app quietly.
I checked out the new APIs (and the old ones), but I could not find a way to solve that.
I also tried to replace existing notifications by using the same identifier, but this will also present a banner.
As my app uses notifications which may help the user, but should not interrupt him I would like to control which notifications are delivered like that and which may be prominent.
If this is currently not possible, I will create feature request for that.
Regards,
Alex
Related
I have a doubt, I've searched and didn't find the answer, I have implemented notification in my app, is it possible to have a cancel notification in the app or it is only a system option?
When the user opens my app on the third screen it asks about sending notifications, but what if the user doesn't want to receive those notifications anymore, does he need to go to iOS settings or can I do this from the app?
Thanks for your time
If you've used react-native-push-notification or #react-native-community/push-notification-ios then there has a way to remove notification from notification center.
you can use this code to remove all natification
PushNotification.removeAllDeliveredNotifications();
Removes the specified notifications from Notification Center
PushNotification.removeDeliveredNotifications(identifiers);
check out official doc for more detail
packages:
https://www.npmjs.com/package/react-native-push-notification
https://www.npmjs.com/package/#react-native-community/push-notification-ios
If you no longer needed to receive notifications in your app, it's better to handle the logic in your backend. When the user denies permission, remove the push token from the server. If you only want to remove certain types of notifications, instead of removing tokens, you can set a flag on backend logic to enable/disable certain notifications.
If you really want to do this on the client-side, you can use data-only notifications of FCM or a similar kind, where you have the control to present notifications as local notifications. Basically, a background listener will be triggered when you receive a data-only notification and OS won't present notification. You need to create a local notification and present it according to the data you receive. Here you can add your logic to filter notifications based on User's choice
We have iOS push notifications configured and running. However, we would like the user to select which categories are interesting to receive and which are not important and would like to omit receiving those notifications.
Is there any way to do this through Apple push notification itself rather than through the server sending the notifications? (We can change the sent JSON). Can the iPhone send which categories it would like to receive and which are not needed by registering them to Apple? Other choice, can we interrupt the push notification before being shown and decide whether it should be shown or not through a delegate? So far, I can't find an available method to do either.
Any help is appreciated
The short answer is not from the client side. If you want a solution that works 100% of the time you will need to do something on a server which only sends the types of push notifications the user subscribes to.
If your App is in background there is no concept of "categories" of PUSH notifications and you have no control over if they show up in the notification center.
You can examine inbound push when the App is in the foreground and decide on the basis of some meta data to display or not, but that is not a 100% solution.
On Android, when supplying the same id in two calls to NotificationManager.notify, only one notification will be shown in the notification drawer.
But how to do it on iOS
Thanks
Notifications on iOS are not designed to be grouped/collapsed or replaced by other notifications. Just check other messenger apps, the convention is to have a separate notification for each message, contrary to Android. Also a message doesn't get replaced by a new message in the same conversation. The functionality that Android provides here simply doesn't exist in iOS.
What you could do instead is, to send silent notifications ("push-to-sync") and handle the grouping/replacing on client side, since you have more control over local notifications (e.g. you can remove single local notifications, but not single remote notifications). But keep in mind, if the app was force quit, it won't be woken up to process the silent notification.
I think your best option is to stick to the convention and don't group/replace notifications.
about iOS you have to understand many things about the push notification
first it is not part of your app, in iOS it is separate application called notification centre that your app add itself to it so when APNS send a notification it send it to the notification centre in your iPhone not to your app.
so what you need to do will be in the server side not in the mobile side
for example let's say it is a chat application
the server side should check if the message is sent from the same user
the badge count should remain the same and not to notify APNS with new count
and also in the server side
the server will check if the message from the same user to send only sound notification not text or if the server got many message at once from the same user send the text with got many message from same user
but all of that is just work around as something like this is not provided yet in iOS may be in iOS9 as it become more open and not like previous versions
good luck
Is there any way to know if a local notification was dismiss from the Notification Center (for example by pressing the x button)?
Is it possible to get a list of all the notifications currently visible in the Notification Center?
No it's not possible to get list of notifications from any of APIs from Apple.
And no there is no feedback from ignored / closed notifications.
If you want to implement logic like that, I would propose to build this type of logic based on your own servers.
When you send a notification you keep information about it on server side.
When you open the app from notification (that it's doable) you send information to a server side.
When you open the app not from notification you can have a logic on a server side checking if there were any notification that were not confirmed from the last time you opened the application.
Keep in mind that notifications are not always delivered - it's not guarantee that user will get them and if use has notifications turned of for your application - all notifications will be treated as ignored.
To improve that logic you may want to send information about user permissions for notifications to your servers - which still is not guarantee that he didn't disable them in settings :(
Long story short - never ever build any of your application core functionality based on notifications.
In my settings tabbar:
I have a feature specific switch which can be turned OFF or ON based on API response.
From website only admin is authorized to turn ON/OFF.
I can make /user API call everytime on settings tap to check the current settings for the user but there are couple of disadvantage like if user is already on setting then it will not update the UI and calling api everytime on settings tap doesn't sounds a perfect solution.
I think better solution is to send a silent push notification which i can use to make the API call to update the settings UI whenever needed.
But if user has disabled the push notification will I still receive silent push ? What is the recommended approach to handle such situations ?
Short answer, yes
The exciting new opportunity for app developers in iOS 8 is that Apple will now deliver “silent” pushes even if the user has opted out of notifications. Also, “silent push” is no longer just for Newsstand apps. Every app can take advantage of this ability to refresh content in the background, creating the most up-to-date, responsive experience possible, the moment the user opens the app.
Although...
Users still have the ability to switch off your app’s ability to process a “silent push” by means of the “Background App Refresh” control. Even though Apple Push Notification service (APNs) will deliver a push marked “content-available” to your phone, the OS will not wake up your app to receive it, effectively dropping it on the floor. However, opting out of “Background App Refresh” is a lesser-known capability not directly associated with Notifications. You don’t access this preference in your Notifications Settings--it’s located under General > Background App Refresh screen.
Keep this in mind when building your application.
Source:
https://www.urbanairship.com/blog/watch-list-ios-8-opt-in-changes
This matrix might help. At left hand side, it shows if "didReceiveRemoteNotification: " method will get called or not. Other two columns is related to setting app. Settings -> YourApp. If yourApp supports Notifications and background app refresh. Look into matrix to check when you app will receive silent push.
Other answers are good. But they are not official answers.
The official answer is in What's New in Notifications WWDC 2015 video:
Silent notifications are enabled by default. The user does not need to
approve your -- does not give permission to your app to use them, and
you can just start using them without asking the user for permission.
But silent notifications are the mechanism behind background app
refresh. At any point you know that the user can go in settings and
disable them. So you can't depend on them always being available. You
don't know if the user the turn them off, and you are not getting a
notification anymore. This also means that silent notifications are
delivered with the best effort. That means that when the notification
arrives on the user's device, the system is going to make some
choices.
For more see this image and this answer