I'm a new developer, and I just started to learn about servers and push notifications. I have replicated a match app in which users select other people that they liked. If two users like each other they form a match. I would like to send a notification every time someone matches with another person. How would I go about doing this if I was using firebase for storage?
Are you using firebase storage or firebase real-time database as a backend? I assume you meant firebase database. You can trigger a notification by monitoring change at a specific database path/ref using cloud functions. Check out following samples from firebase on how to use cloud functions: https://github.com/firebase/functions-samples/tree/master/fcm-notifications
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I having a case where I need to receive notification whenever Realtime Database Firebase have new data. When investigate, I found out there are 2 way to do this in client side (mobile app using React Native):
Using Realtime Database child_added event
Using Cloud Functions event onWrite()
Can someone please tell me what is the difference between 2 way and pros and cons of each way?. The document is not helpful for me about this.
Note:
Backend Server written in Java framework Spring boot response function push new data to Realtime Database Firebase.
Client side need to receive notification when new data added to Realtime Database Firebase (currently only mobile app written in React Native but I also need to do it for web in the future)
Paraphrasing Frank Van Puffelen's comment as an answer:
Firestore and Realtime databases are two completely separate databases. Though firestore and Realtime database both are part of Firebase. If you want to trigger a cloud function from Real Time database, please follow this documentation. If you want to trigger cloud function from Firestore, please check this documentation.
Is it possible to implement APNS with Firebase Firestore?
I've managed to send a push notification to devices via Firebase Cloud Messaging from the web console but my app needs to have push notifications for changes in the database, such as when the user receive a like or a friend request.
Is there any workaround?
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
You need to use Firebase Cloud Functions with the FireStore triggers. The first link has your use case.
There are some great tutorial videos on Firebase's YouTube account. It even includes adding a Firestore Trigger.
You can also send device-to-device push notifications, which work great for 1-1 relationships (1-1 chat, for instance). To achieve that, you can leverage this endpoint https://fcm.googleapis.com/fcm/send.
I am working in photo vault app. So i need to detect changes of firebase database from my app when someone insert new photo or delete photo.I can log in from different device using same user id. I need to reload my collection view in that time. I saw cloud message notification. But i need a notification for data entry. Please help me.
Firebase now have a new tool called Cloud Functions.
With this you can execute code without a server, listen to Firebase Database and send notifications.
Take a look to the documentation, it's easy:
https://firebase.google.com/docs/functions/use-cases
Jaime reply about the cloud function suites well if you are inclined to use google offerings. If not, here's how one would approach the problem... Any database is not exposed to client applications directly. Normally there's a web server that writes to the database. So from the web server when you write to database, you can integrate with a unified push notification provider (Amazon SNS, Bluemix Push, etc) to send a notification to the client application on mobile or web.
In my app I do need synchronization/communication between devices, therefore I need a serverside database. Whenever some special record changes, I need to send a push notification and/or an email.
It's an iOS-only app, so Cloudkit would be fine, but I don't think that it's possible to send an e-mail. Same fore Firebase. Am I overlooking something or are there very similar alternatives which are capable of both, sending push and mail?
Since March 2017 there's an integration between Google Cloud Functions and Firebase. This allows you to run JavaScript code on Google's servers in response to events that happen in Firebase. A node being written to the database is one such event, but there are many more use-cases.
Your use-case seems closest to this sample, which sends a welcome email when a user subscribes to some fictional newsletter.
I am an iPhone app coder, and I'm using Firebase as my backend server. Firebase doesn't support Push Notifications, so I've been trying to figure out how to include them in my app. I've read this question: How to send an alert message to a special online user with firebase but it seems like more of a work-around than an actual solution.
Is there an answer on how to do this? Are there third parties or APIs that might seemlessly implement this functionality?
One solution I have tried is to use Zapier to connect Firebase to Pushover.
At this point, I've been able to observe events in the app that I'm coding and then get notifications in a pushover app on my iphone. However, ideally, I'd like to receive the notifications in my app, not in the pushover app, because I don't want users to need to have pushover in order to use my app and because I want users to receive their own distinct notifications, not notifications for everyone.
Does anyone have suggestions on how I should handle this issue?
Thanks for the help!
EDIT
This isn't a duplicate of this question: Does firebase handle push notifications? because I know Firebase doesn't directly handle push notifications. I'm looking for the best indirect way of handling push notifications with Firebase.
Now Google rebranded GCM to Firebase Cloud Messaging and it now offers this cross platform service. Firebase also offers notifications.
These are the differences between these two services:
Firebase Cloud Messaging provides a complete set of messaging
capabilities through its client SDKs and HTTP and XMPP server
protocols. For deployments with more complex messaging requirements,
FCM is the right choice.
Firebase Notifications is a lightweight, serverless messaging solution
built on Firebase Cloud Messaging. With a user-friendly graphical
console and reduced coding requirements, Firebase Notifications lets
users easily send messages to reengage and retain users, foster app
growth, and support marketing campaigns.
If you want a more detailed comparison. Read this.
If you want device to device push messages and not just server to device, the only solution I found was OneSignal. I was able to add basic device to device push message support for my app in about an hour and it is currently free.
Both Batch and Firebase only support server to device push messages, not what you want for a chat app
There are a couple of options: (well, more than a couple but here's two)
Parse handles push notifications very very well - they have that down pat and it's super simple. However, you may have issues with users and accounts - depending on what your app does.
You mentioned Pushover. We worked their API a while back but not through Zapier. If I remember correctly, I believe you can simply register your app, send an HTTPS: request to their server and then the notifications are sent from/to your app.
Also, you may want to evaluate how you are using push as it's possible you can roll a notification-like event just into the app itself.
Here's the answer I got from the Firebase team:
Firebase currently does not have push notification feature. You can use Firebase Queue and GCM to implement push notification in your app. Queues can be used in your Firebase app to organize workers or perform background work like generating thumbnails of images, filtering message contents and censoring data, or fanning data out to multiple locations in your Firebase database. Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) is a free service that enables developers to send messages between servers and client apps and it is available in both iOS and Android.
You can push an object with some data to the /queue/tasks location in your Firebase using any Firebase client or the REST API. Workers listening at that location will automatically pick up and process the job. From that, your workers can make a GCM push notification.
(end of message from Firebase team)
~~~~~~~~~
Here's my analysis:
It seems like there are a few solutions, but the two best ones are:
1) Use FirebaseQueue with Google Cloud Messaging.
2) Leverage the Push Notification functionality in Parse within the Firebase app.
I'm not sure which is better. Parse seems more proven, but Firebase Queue is more-easily integrated into the app (ie. it's nice have everything on Firebase and not having to set up a Parse app)
Anyways, I hope this thread helps out other people!
Just realized that they've come out this:
Batch
Firebase now has Notifications inbuilt.
https://firebase.google.com/docs/notifications/
I had the same problem and managed to figure out a solution a while back. I have detailed my solution in the following posts https://stackoverflow.com/a/44192515/7048719 and https://stackoverflow.com/a/42240984/7048719
You have to create a firebase data service class and use a shared instance to hold the observers in memory when the app goes into background. From there it is just a matter doing what you wish.