Set default iOS local notification style for application - ios

Starting with iOS 5, there are two notification styles: banner and alert (the "old" style). A user can set which style to use for each application in the settings. However, the default now seems to be that notifications are displayed banner style.
I'm using local notifications for reminders about events that will happen "now". A banner disappears shortly after it appeared (and it's not obvious enough that one can tap it), so for these notifications it would be desirable to have the alert style notifications as those stay on screen until the user decided on an action (ignore or go to app).
Is there a way either through code or for example Info.plist entries to tell iOS that the alert style notifications should be used by default (as long as the user hasn't configured something else)?
Update: The absence of information/documentation is not enough for me to have this settled. I want either something like a forum/blog post from someone with authority (Apple employee or someone along the lines of Erica Sadun) saying it's not possible, or if it is possible then I want the solution. A workaround like "ask the user to change the setting" isn't good enough either.

I would like to add something, since I've opened a TSI and somehow I asked about this and have been answered. From Quinn "The Eskimo!":
"This depends on you mean. You have some control over how the notification appears based on how you set the UILocalNotification properties (things like alertBody, soundName, and so on). However, if you're asking about the way in which those properties are interpreted (the things the user can customise in Settings > Notifications), those are user preferences and not exposed via any API."

I have an alarm app for which I also need this functionality. Under iOS5 if the user is using another app when it goes off then the banner appears. Consequently I spent a lot of time browsing for a solution.
However, it's not possible to control the style of alert generated by a UILocalNotification I'm afraid :(
You can see from the class reference that there's no provision for it:
http://developer.apple.com/library/IOs/#documentation/iPhone/Reference/UILocalNotification_Class/Reference/Reference.html
Or in the plist:
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/general/Reference/InfoPlistKeyReference/Articles/iPhoneOSKeys.html
Best thing to do is tell the user what to do to change the settings.

You probably won't find 'authoritative' from your peers here, you should better ask directly to Apple; and the question has already been asked several times on theirs forums and not answered...
The HIG programming guide - http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/TechnologyUsage/TechnologyUsage.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40006556-CH18-SW1 -
"iOS apps that support local or push notifications can participate in
Notification Center in various ways, depending on the user’s
preferences."
That last sentence is the only 'authoritative hint' i found.
The USER'S preferences <= you can't force the user ('s preferences).
Period.
This design choice is clearly the Apple Way (applications' playground IS limited, to ensure the best user experience possible)
As for more authority... maybe shouting ?
NO YOU CAN'T CHOOSE YOUR NOTIFICATIONS DISPLAY STYLE, IT'S THE USER'S CHOICE
Just kidding...
Anyway, a workaround might be to provide a way in your application - hint/ tutorial - to push the user to change the alert style himself...
good luck !

Obviously you don't like hearing no for an answer, but, no.

You can use this line to query the current settings for notification style:
UIRemoteNotificationType* enabledTypes = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] enabledRemoteNotificationTypes];
You can check the enabledTypes and then instruct the user to change the notification style in the settings.

have you tried
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] registerForRemoteNotificationTypes: (UIRemoteNotificationTypeBadge | UIRemoteNotificationTypeSound)];
in your didFinishLaunching method, this won't help those updating but should enable alerts for those first installing

Related

Open your own application via URL schemes [duplicate]

I tested:
UIControl().sendAction(#selector(URLSessionTask.suspend), to: UIApplication.shared, for: nil)
which is for putting app on background and it works.
How do I put app back on foreground?
I tried:
UIControl().sendAction(#selector(URLSessionTask.resume), to: UIApplication.shared, for: nil)
But eventually it crashes...
Thank you
Update:
Since you've indicated that you're looking for any technical solution, even those not compatible with the App Store or Apple's terms, this should be possible using the Private API LSApplicationWorkspace: openApplicationWithBundleID. Try something like this:
Create a .h file and set up an interface to the LSApplicationWorkspace class and list the required method. You will need to #import "PrivateHeaders.h" in your bridging header.
//
// PrivateHeaders.h
//
#ifndef PrivateHeaders_h
#define PrivateHeaders_h
#interface LSApplicationWorkspace : NSObject
- (bool)openApplicationWithBundleID:(id)arg1;
#end
#endif /* PrivateHeaders_h */
You should then be able to call this function and pass in the Bundle Identifier of your app as an string.
//
// SomeClass.swift
//
import MobileCoreServices
let workspace = LSApplicationWorkspace()
/**
Launch an App given its bundle identifier
- parameter bundleIdentifier: The bundle identifier of the app to launch
- returns: True if app is launched, otherwise false
*/
func openApp(withBundleIdentifier bundleIdentifier: String) -> Bool {
// Call the Private API LSApplicationWorkspace method
return workspace.openApplication(withBundleID: bundleIdentifier)
}
Original:
What you are doing is likely a violation of the iOS Human Interface Guidelines (although the "Don’t Quit Programmatically" is no longer specifically defined), so as the comments have said, it is not suited to the App Store. Regardless, once your app is suspended in this way, I don't expect that there is a way to resume it programmatically, unless you can hook into a Background Operation to run URLSessionTask.resume, but I have not tested it and am unsure whether it can work.
Apps can be launched (and hence brought into the foreground) programmatically from another app or today extension by using a Custom URL Scheme, or via a Push Notification. It isn't possible to launch the app from the Background Operation via a URL Scheme, since it is part of the UIKit framework, which must be run in the main thread.
In summary, I think your best option is to try to use a Notification. This just means that the user will need to click on the notification to bring your app back into the foreground.
Closing/opening the app should be done explicitly by the user. Any other way of closing or opening the app is not supported by Apple and will be rejected when uploaded to app store. iOS Human Interface Guideline states:
Don’t Quit Programmatically
Never quit an iOS application
programmatically because people tend to interpret this as a crash.
However, if external circumstances prevent your application from
functioning as intended, you need to tell your users about the
situation and explain what they can do about it. Depending on how
severe the application malfunction is, you have two choices.
*Display
an attractive screen that describes the problem and suggests a
correction. A screen provides feedback that reassures usersthat
there’s nothing wrong with your application. It puts usersin control,
letting them decide whether they want to take corrective action and
continue using your application or press the Home button and open a
different application
*If only some of your application's features are
not working, display either a screen or an alert when people activate
the feature. Display the alert only when people try to accessthe
feature that isn’t functioning
Just as a follow up to Jordan's excellent answer I want to give an explanation for why your code works in the first place and why that alone will get your app rejected, even without any functionality to make it active again and bring it to the foreground.
As maddy pointed out in a comment, you're basically calling a method from UIApplication's private API. This works due to the Objective-C runtime's dynamic linking. You might wonder "But I am using Swift, what does that have to do with Objective-C?" The answer lies in #selector mechanism. A Selector is basically just a symbol that the Objective-C runtime looks up in a table to get a method it invokes (for you). This is why it's technically not correct to say you "call a method" when you do something like myObjectInstance.someMethod(). The correct way to phrase that would be to "send a message" to the object, because that's what is happening in the runtime. The target-action mechanism is build around that. The sendAction(_: Selector?, to: Any?) method does the same thing. So in effect your code does the following:
Get the symbol that corresponds to URLSessionTask's suspend() method.
Tell the shared instance of UIApplication to invoke the method that it has for that symbol.
Now usually that would result in a crash with the typical "unknown selector sent to instance..." error message. But here, by sure coincidence UIApplication also has a method for that instance (or rather, the runtime also has one of its methods listed in its table for that symbol). You kind of "found" a method that is not declared in its public header. You successfully circumvented a compile-time check for this and invoke a method that is part of a private API. This is explicitly forbidden in the Apple Developer Program License Agreement
Besides all that, I would strongly advise against trying to design an app that way in the first place. As maddy pointed out it's also likely considered to violate the HIGs. Even if you're not trying to do anything malicious and properly explain the feature in your app's description, that won't make Apple let it slide (I assume). Personally, as a user, I'd also find it annoying if the app did something the system already has a specific mechanic for in a different manner, at least in terms of app's coming to background and foreground.
I don't think it can be done without user interaction
The option is you can generate a push notification to tell the user to bring the application to foreground
When the operating system delivers push notification and the target application is not running in the foreground, it presents the notification.
If there is a notification alert and the user taps or clicks the action button (or moves the action slider), the application launches and calls a method to pass in the local-notification object or remote-notification payload.

Put app on foreground programmatically on Swift

I tested:
UIControl().sendAction(#selector(URLSessionTask.suspend), to: UIApplication.shared, for: nil)
which is for putting app on background and it works.
How do I put app back on foreground?
I tried:
UIControl().sendAction(#selector(URLSessionTask.resume), to: UIApplication.shared, for: nil)
But eventually it crashes...
Thank you
Update:
Since you've indicated that you're looking for any technical solution, even those not compatible with the App Store or Apple's terms, this should be possible using the Private API LSApplicationWorkspace: openApplicationWithBundleID. Try something like this:
Create a .h file and set up an interface to the LSApplicationWorkspace class and list the required method. You will need to #import "PrivateHeaders.h" in your bridging header.
//
// PrivateHeaders.h
//
#ifndef PrivateHeaders_h
#define PrivateHeaders_h
#interface LSApplicationWorkspace : NSObject
- (bool)openApplicationWithBundleID:(id)arg1;
#end
#endif /* PrivateHeaders_h */
You should then be able to call this function and pass in the Bundle Identifier of your app as an string.
//
// SomeClass.swift
//
import MobileCoreServices
let workspace = LSApplicationWorkspace()
/**
Launch an App given its bundle identifier
- parameter bundleIdentifier: The bundle identifier of the app to launch
- returns: True if app is launched, otherwise false
*/
func openApp(withBundleIdentifier bundleIdentifier: String) -> Bool {
// Call the Private API LSApplicationWorkspace method
return workspace.openApplication(withBundleID: bundleIdentifier)
}
Original:
What you are doing is likely a violation of the iOS Human Interface Guidelines (although the "Don’t Quit Programmatically" is no longer specifically defined), so as the comments have said, it is not suited to the App Store. Regardless, once your app is suspended in this way, I don't expect that there is a way to resume it programmatically, unless you can hook into a Background Operation to run URLSessionTask.resume, but I have not tested it and am unsure whether it can work.
Apps can be launched (and hence brought into the foreground) programmatically from another app or today extension by using a Custom URL Scheme, or via a Push Notification. It isn't possible to launch the app from the Background Operation via a URL Scheme, since it is part of the UIKit framework, which must be run in the main thread.
In summary, I think your best option is to try to use a Notification. This just means that the user will need to click on the notification to bring your app back into the foreground.
Closing/opening the app should be done explicitly by the user. Any other way of closing or opening the app is not supported by Apple and will be rejected when uploaded to app store. iOS Human Interface Guideline states:
Don’t Quit Programmatically
Never quit an iOS application
programmatically because people tend to interpret this as a crash.
However, if external circumstances prevent your application from
functioning as intended, you need to tell your users about the
situation and explain what they can do about it. Depending on how
severe the application malfunction is, you have two choices.
*Display
an attractive screen that describes the problem and suggests a
correction. A screen provides feedback that reassures usersthat
there’s nothing wrong with your application. It puts usersin control,
letting them decide whether they want to take corrective action and
continue using your application or press the Home button and open a
different application
*If only some of your application's features are
not working, display either a screen or an alert when people activate
the feature. Display the alert only when people try to accessthe
feature that isn’t functioning
Just as a follow up to Jordan's excellent answer I want to give an explanation for why your code works in the first place and why that alone will get your app rejected, even without any functionality to make it active again and bring it to the foreground.
As maddy pointed out in a comment, you're basically calling a method from UIApplication's private API. This works due to the Objective-C runtime's dynamic linking. You might wonder "But I am using Swift, what does that have to do with Objective-C?" The answer lies in #selector mechanism. A Selector is basically just a symbol that the Objective-C runtime looks up in a table to get a method it invokes (for you). This is why it's technically not correct to say you "call a method" when you do something like myObjectInstance.someMethod(). The correct way to phrase that would be to "send a message" to the object, because that's what is happening in the runtime. The target-action mechanism is build around that. The sendAction(_: Selector?, to: Any?) method does the same thing. So in effect your code does the following:
Get the symbol that corresponds to URLSessionTask's suspend() method.
Tell the shared instance of UIApplication to invoke the method that it has for that symbol.
Now usually that would result in a crash with the typical "unknown selector sent to instance..." error message. But here, by sure coincidence UIApplication also has a method for that instance (or rather, the runtime also has one of its methods listed in its table for that symbol). You kind of "found" a method that is not declared in its public header. You successfully circumvented a compile-time check for this and invoke a method that is part of a private API. This is explicitly forbidden in the Apple Developer Program License Agreement
Besides all that, I would strongly advise against trying to design an app that way in the first place. As maddy pointed out it's also likely considered to violate the HIGs. Even if you're not trying to do anything malicious and properly explain the feature in your app's description, that won't make Apple let it slide (I assume). Personally, as a user, I'd also find it annoying if the app did something the system already has a specific mechanic for in a different manner, at least in terms of app's coming to background and foreground.
I don't think it can be done without user interaction
The option is you can generate a push notification to tell the user to bring the application to foreground
When the operating system delivers push notification and the target application is not running in the foreground, it presents the notification.
If there is a notification alert and the user taps or clicks the action button (or moves the action slider), the application launches and calls a method to pass in the local-notification object or remote-notification payload.

isRegisteredForRemoteNotifications returning NO even after turning on Notifications

So we have a notification screen where users can customize the push notifications they want to receive. In this view controller, we check if [application isRegisteredForRemoteNotifications], we allow users to use the screen, else we show them the prompt that deep links to settings for the app. Now, what's happing is that certain users are complaining that this prompt never disappears even when they turn on in settings. They have sent us the screenshot of the screen, as well as device settings for the app. We have not been able to reproduce this issue. The view controller is directly checking against the OS flag, so there is not much scope of error there. Also we have gone through the code and haven't found anything. I am assuming that because of network issues, deviceToken is not getting delivered to the app. Not really sure what else might be going here. Appreciate any help or suggestions on this matter.

Close the app in 'applicationDidEnterBackground'

I have an iOS app and for several reasons I need to close it when the user clicks the home button of the device. I can't support background.
I now there is an option called Application does not run in background, but I can't use it because there is a bug from Facebook sdk that makes impossible to authenticate with Facebook when this option is in use. Here is the bug report at Facebook.
So I don't know what to do, how can I restart it? An [[NSThread mainThread] exit] in applicationDidEnterBackground?
Is there a workaround for this?
The legal (Apple will approve the app) way is set or create the key UIApplicationExitsOnSuspend to YES in the Info.plist.
To get this as action you would need exit(0) or [[NSThread mainThread] exit], but this is against the Human Interface Guidelines from Apple
So what you could also do is just design all your views in a manner that they have a reset function . Then when applicationDidEnterBackground store that you need to reset on next startup or directly call reset on all active views in applicationWillEnterBackground
So your App didn't really restart, but all your views look like this. To give you an advice, I would design my app in a manner that it doesn't shutdown itself when i quit. This is no good user experience.. Once clicked the home button and all your data is away, same when you receive a call.
Plain old stdlib.h exit() will terminate the app, though it violates apple guidelines (see "Don't Quit Programmatically").
Your app won't perform any background actions if you don't initiate any.

Exit an application or Go to Dash board(main page) programmatically - IOS

I want to exit my application programatically, I googled, some people suggesting to use exit(1), but apple is not supporting that I guess. If it is the case, How do I exit my application programatically. Any helps appreciated.
exit(0); will work but don't use it
You shouldn't force close an app as the standard way to terminate an application is to press the home button (or use the multitasking bar)
Don’t Quit Programmatically
Never quit an iOS application programmatically because people tend to
interpret this as a crash. However, if external circumstances prevent
your application from functioning as intended, you need to tell your
users about the situation and explain what they can do about it.
Depending on how severe the application malfunction is, you have two
choices.
Display an attractive screen that describes the problem and suggests a
correction. A screen provides feedback that reassures users that
there’s nothing wrong with your application. It puts users in control,
letting them decide whether they want to take corrective action and
continue using your application or press the Home button and open a
different application
If only some of your application's features are not working, display
either a screen or an alert when people activate the feature. Display
the alert only when people try to access the feature that isn’t
functioning.
Source
I believe u are not reading the comment properly thus posting the answer for ur question here:
"Simply Don't do that. as apple does not allow application to crash like that."
look at here. How do I exit my iOS app gracefully after handling a Local Notification and here Exit application in iOS 4.0 there are fare discussion over here.
After the release of iOS4, multitasking(new feature) was added by APPLE. This feature enabled the users to keep the app into suspended state in the background if in between he has to do some other activity(e.g. picking up phone call). So Apple considers your app should be maintained in the background until the user deletes the application from the background. And after this if you want to exit use exit(0);, using this would further lead to rejection from AppStore
Here's a wrong way to accomplished exit function in your app. This is coming to mind when I read your question, never applied anywhere, so be careful if you'll gonna implement this!
- (void) exitApp
{
NSArray *array = [[[NSArray alloc] init] autorelease];
NSLog(#"%#",[array objectAtIndex:10]); //will crash here, looks like exit.
}
P.S. You can put this code inside your UIAlertView asking exit confirmation like Do you really want to exit?. In YES button pressed you can call [self exitApp]; User think that he'll exit from the app.

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