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Creating a Notification in Open Event Android App

It is a good practice to show user a notification for alerts and have their attention for important events they want to remember. Open Event Android app shows notifications for the actions like bookmarks, upcoming events etc. In this blog we learn how to create similar kind of alert notification.

 

Displaying notification after bookmarking a track

NotificationCompat is available as part of the Android Support Library, so the first step is opening your project’s module-level build.gradle file and adding the support library to the dependencies section. First we initialize the notification manager with the context of application so a user can see notification irrespective of where it is in app.

NotificationManager mManager = (NotificationManager) this.getApplicationContext().getSystemService(NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);
int id = intent.getIntExtra(ConstantStrings.SESSION, 0);
String session_date;
Session session = realmRepo.getSessionSync(id);

We then get the info we want to display in the notification from the intent. While adding an action to your notification is optional, the reality is that the vast majority of applications add actions to their notifications. We define a notification action using a PendingIntent. In this instance, we update our basic notification with a PendingIntent.

Intent intent1 = new Intent(this.getApplicationContext(), SessionDetailActivity.class);
intent1.putExtra(ConstantStrings.SESSION, session.getTitle());
intent1.putExtra(ConstantStrings.ID, session.getId());
intent1.putExtra(ConstantStrings.TRACK,session.getTrack().getName());
PendingIntent pendingNotificationIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(this.getApplicationContext(), 0, intent1, PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);
Bitmap largeIcon = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.mipmap.ic_launcher);

We also test the condition for the OS version to display the marker image, see image 1 for reference. The minimum requirement for a notification are:

  • An icon: Create the image you want to use and then add it to you project’s ‘drawable’ folder. Here notification shows bookmark option
  • Title text. You can set a notification’s title either by referencing a string resource, or by adding the text to your notification directly.
  • Detail text. This is the most important part of your notification, so this text must include everything the user needs to understand exactly what they’re being notified about.
int smallIcon = R.drawable.ic_bookmark_white_24dp;
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT < Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP) smallIcon = R.drawable.ic_noti_bookmark;

String session_timings = String.format("%s - %s",
       DateConverter.formatDateWithDefault(DateConverter.FORMAT_12H, session.getStartsAt()),
       DateConverter.formatDateWithDefault(DateConverter.FORMAT_12H, session.getEndsAt()));
session_date = DateConverter.formatDateWithDefault(DateConverter.FORMAT_DATE_COMPLETE, session.getStartsAt());

Finally we build notification using notification builder having various options to set text style, small icons, big icon etc., see the complete class here, 

NotificationCompat.Builder mBuilder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)
       .setSmallIcon(smallIcon)
       .setLargeIcon(largeIcon)
       .setContentTitle(session.getTitle())
       .setContentText(session_date + "\n" + session_timings)
       .setAutoCancel(true)
       .setStyle(new NotificationCompat.BigTextStyle().bigText(session_date + "\n" + session_timings))
       .setContentIntent(pendingNotificationIntent);
intent1.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);

mBuilder.setSound(RingtoneManager.getDefaultUri(RingtoneManager.TYPE_NOTIFICATION));
mManager.notify(session.getId(), mBuilder.build());

References

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