Displaying notifications on Android when the app is foregrounded

[munkii]

I get that PushDelegate.OnEntry does not get called on Android.

My understanding of "data" notifications and "Notification" notifications is that they are controlled by whether or not you are including the "notification" object in your JSON payload (I am sending these notifications via Azure Notification Hub). Ones without the "notifcation" object could be considered silent.

If the app is in the background and the notification is not a silent "data only" one then the Notification goes straight into the System tray. If the app is in the foreground the OS does not send it to the system tray instead it calls the app and in the case of Shiny PushDelegate OnReceived gets called.

What I really want is for a Notification Alert to popup when the app is in the foreground or the background. A couple of threads I have read say that I should be sending data only Push Notifications and then in the OnReceived callback creating local notifications.

I'm happy with that as an approach but my attempts at creating local notifications still have them just appearing in the system tray!

I have tried the Shiny "Notifcation" Samples and they also just go straight to the System Tray

await shinyNotificationManager.Send(
    new Shiny.Notifications.Notification()
    {
        Message = notification.Notification.Message,
        Title = notification.Notification.Title,
        Android = new Shiny.Notifications.AndroidOptions() { LaunchActivityFlags = Shiny.Notifications.AndroidActivityFlags.SingleTop },
    });

This SO question suggested that I need to create a Channel.

I quickly tried that but that still had them going into the System Tray

await shinyNotificationManager.AddChannel(
                                                        new Shiny.Notifications.Channel()
                                                        {
                                                            Importance = Shiny.Notifications.ChannelImportance.Normal,
                                                            Description = "General",
                                                            Identifier = "1",
                                                        });

Can someone please tell me where I am going wrong

[aritchie]

Notifications don't really happen if your app is in the foreground (especially on iOS). From purely an android perspective, there may be some channel settings to allow this, but I'm not aware of what they are. You are best to use the foreground events like pushManager.WhenReceived() or in your delegate, send a message for your UI to do something (toast, etc).

As an FYI, if you do want to use the channel you've created, you also need to set it on your local notification. In your example code, it isn't being set

[almirvuk]

I am using the latest 2.5.x (preview) and facing the issue where OnEntry is not triggered on iOS, the Notification part of the PushNotification object struct is null for OnReceived.

[aritchie]

@almirvuk

The Notification object will be null for background cases on both Android & iOS

  /// <summary>
  /// Notification properties received - this will be null if received in the background
  /// </summary>
  public Notification? Notification { get; }

@munkii
Ensure both your server side & entitlements are set to production. Also note that Apple throttles content available messages if you send too many (3-5) per hour on production, thus you will think things have stopped working if you've been testing too much

[almirvuk]

Hi, @aritchie thank you for the input, I am currently browsing the commits you had for 2.5.x and trying to understand why OnEntry is "ignored" on iOS in my case, "content-available": 1 in payload helps to trigger the OnReceived but after clicking the notification nothing happens both in foreground or background.

[aritchie]

@almirvuk I don't know. I haven't fully tested everything on the iOS side yet. I'd rather not discuss previews here as they simply aren't finished. When I release to stable, if you are having an issue, please file it using the proper issue form: https://github.com/shinyorg/shiny/issues/new/choose This forum is not meant for issues because there isn't enough info/code.

[almirvuk]

I agree 100%, you are right :) When it goes stable I will test it out and provide as much info as I can :)

Thank you for all the great work!

[aritchie]

As of the next release 2.5 (currently in preview) - Foreground notifications will be handled by the library again. You will only need to ensure the proper channel is passed (and created).

Also, onentry is now working fully by setting the click_action to SHINY_NOTIFICATION_CLICK and setting up an intent filter on your main activity

[almirvuk]

This is great! Thank you @aritchie :)

[almirvuk]

Wow! I tried the 2.5.0-preview-3108, and I can confirm that everything works as expected both foreground and background parts :)

The only thing I noticed is that clicking on foreground notification re-creates a MainActivity, is that expected behavior or we should play with LaunchMode? :)

Thank you!