Scheduling Notifications - StansAssets/com.stansassets.android-native GitHub Wiki

Local notifications give you a way to alert the user at times when your app might not be running. You schedule local notifications at the time when your app is running either in the foreground or background. After scheduling a notification, the system takes on the responsibility of delivering the notification to the user at the appropriate time. Your app does not need to be running for the system to deliver the notification. If your app is not running, or if it is in the background, the system displays local notifications directly to the user. The system can alert the user with an alert panel or banner, with a sound, or by badging your app’s icon. If your app provides a notification content app extension, the system can even use your custom interface to alert the user. If your app is in the foreground when a notification arrives, the system gives your app the opportunity to handle the notification internally.

Configuring a Local Notification

The steps for configuring a local notification are as follows:

1. Create and configure an AN_NotificationCompat.Builder object with the notification details.
2. Create an AN_AlarmNotificationTrigger object to describe the conditions under which the notification is delivered.
3. Create an AN_NotificationRequest object with the content and trigger information.
4. Call the AN_NotificationManager.Schedule method to schedule the notification.

See the code example below:

using SA.Android.App;
using SA.Android.SupportV4.App;
...

var builder = new AN_NotificationCompat.Builder();
builder.SetContentText("Text 2");
builder.SetContentTitle("Title 2");

var trigger = new AN_AlarmNotificationTrigger();
trigger.SetDate(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5));

// Make sure you provide an unique notification requiest id
// for eatch request you schedule
int id = 1; 
var request = new AN_NotificationRequest(id, builder, trigger);

AN_NotificationManager.Schedule(request);

Providing a custom Icon

In case you don't provide an icon, the default app icons will be used. But you always can provide an original icon for the notifications.

Register your icon inside editor settings as shown on a screenshot below. The icon also should have a specific location in your project. The editor UI will most likely ask you to move the icon to the required location. Just press the move button if it appears.

The icon name must contain only lowercase a-z, 0-9, or underscore. You can now provide this icon name to a builder. Make sure you only providing a filename without path or extension. See the example below.

using SA.Android.App;
using SA.Android.SupportV4.App;
...

var builder = new AN_NotificationCompat.Builder();
builder.SetContentText("Text");
builder.SetContentTitle("Title")

builder.SetSmallIcon("isn_icon");

var notification = builder.Build();
AN_NotificationManager.Notify(notification);

Custom icon with Android 7 or lower

Some users noticed trouble rendering your Logo correctly on the Android notification bar post Lollipop or lower.

First, let’s understand the Android documentation which is as follows – “Update or removes assets that involve color. The system ignores all non-alpha channels in action icons and in the main notification icon. You should assume that these icons will be alpha-only. The system draws notification icons in white and action icons in dark gray.”

Now, this is easy to miss and I have seen many apps that are live in the app store with thousands of users who haven’t followed the mentioned guidelines.

So let me explain in detail how you can convert your notification icon to an Android-friendly one with a few clicks.

In your favorite image editor open up your icon file. Convert all parts of the image that you don’t want to show transparent pixels. All colors and non-transparent pixels are displayed in white. Let us go through an example.

Make sure your file is of the PNG file format with a transparent background. Following these steps will ensure that your logo shows up as expected in Android 5-7. Original post by Rohit.

Providing a custom sound

You may provide the notification sound the same way you do this for an icon. Register your sound inside editor settings as shown on a screenshot below

Move the resource if required. And then feel free to use it with the builder.

using SA.Android.App;
using SA.Android.SupportV4.App;
...

var builder = new AN_NotificationCompat.Builder();
builder.SetContentText("Text");
builder.SetContentTitle("Title")

builder.SetSound("beep");

var notification = builder.Build();
AN_NotificationManager.Notify(notification);

On Android 8 and later, however, the notification sound is part of the channels. If you not using Notification Channels API you have nothing to worry about. Since Android Native plugin will automatically create and configure the channel for your notification. But if you decide to use Notification Channels API you'll need to provide a custom sound for the notification build (for Android versions below 8) and to the notification channel (for Android version >=8). See the example below:

using SA.Android.App;
using SA.Android.SupportV4.App;
...

string channelId = "my_channel_id";
string name = "My Channel Name";
string description = "My Channel Description";
var importance = AN_NotificationManager.Importance.DEFAULT;

AN_NotificationChannel channel = new AN_NotificationChannel(channelId, name, importance);
channel.Description = description;
channel.Sound = "beep";
// you can check if channel exists before re-recreating it
AN_NotificationManager.CreateNotificationChannel(channel);

var builder = new AN_NotificationCompat.Builder();
builder.SetChanelId(channelId);
builder.SetContentText("Text");
builder.SetContentTitle("Title")

builder.SetSound("beep");

var notification = builder.Build();
AN_NotificationManager.Notify(notification);

Canceling Notifications

It's good practice to cancel all pending notifications once your app is launched and re-schedule new ones. By implementing this little trick you can make sure that user will not get notifications while your application running.

There are several methods you can operate.

If you need to remove already delivered notification. You may use the Cancel(int Identifier) method for that purpose:

using SA.Android.App;
...

AN_NotificationManager.Cancel(your_request_id);

Or you can remove all of the delivered notifications with the CancelAll method.

using SA.Android.App;
...

AN_NotificationManager.CancelAll();

When you need to unschedule notification that wasn't yet delivered, use Unschedule(int Identifier) method

using SA.Android.App;
...

AN_NotificationManager.Unschedule(your_request_id);

We also provide UnscheduleAll method, but with certain limitations. The Android platform does not provide scheduling /unscheduled API. So we have to implement it on our own. Android Native will requests id's you schedule using Unity PlayerPrefs, and will use that saved list when you call the UnscheduleAll method. Request Id is saved when Schedule method is called. I will not use PlayerPrefs. Save to not cause any potential hiccups. But you are welcome to add PlayerPrefs.Save after notification is Scheduled, to make sure that plugin 100% will not lose that record, but make sure you not doing this during a gameplay.

Also if you call PlayerPrefs.DeleteAll it will also a clear list of saved id's used by a plugin, and can potential y prevent some notifications to be unscheduled when UnscheduleAll is called.

using SA.Android.App;
...

AN_NotificationManager.UnscheduleAll();