awesome_notifications 0.0.4

A complete solution to create Local Notifications and Push Notifications (Media Notifications, Big Picture, Big text, etc), throught Firebase or another services, using Flutter.

Awesome Notifications - Flutter

Features

• Create Local Notifications on Android, iOS and Web using Flutter.
• Create Push notifications using services as Firebase or any another one, simultaneously;
• Easy to use and highly customizable.
• Add images, sounds, buttons and different layouts on your notifications.
• Notifications could be created at any moment (on Foreground, Background or even when the application is terminated/killed).
• High trustworthy on receive notifications in any Application lifecycle.
• High quality data analytics about when the notification was created, where it came from and when the user taps on it. Ideal for applying AB tests approaches, etc, increasing the users engagement.
• Notifications are received on Flutter level code when they are created, displayed, dismissed or even tapped by the user.
• Notifications could be scheduled repeatedly using a list or precise dates or even Cron rules, such linux does, with seconds precision.
  

Some android notification examples:

Some iOS notification examples (work in progress):

Notification Types Available

• Basic notification
• Big picture notification
• Media notification
• Big Text notification
• Inbox notification
• Notifications with action buttons
• Grouped notifications
• Progress bar notifications

All notifications could be created locally or via Firebase services, with all the features.

ATENTION - PLUGIN UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Working progress percentages of awesome notifications plugin

Next steps

• Include Firebase support for iOS (In construction)
• Finish notifications features for iOS (In construction)
• Expiration date for notifications (not done yet due to iOS limitations) (https://github.com/rafaelsetragni/awesome_notifications/issues/7)
• Add a option to choose if a notification action should bring the app to foreground or not.
• Include Web support
• Include support for another push notification services (Wonderpush, One Signal, IBM, AWS, Azure, etc)
• Video layout for notifications
• Carousel layout for notifications
• Increase the tolerance in the json deserialization process, to accept different types and convert them to the expected.
  

Main Philosophy

Considering all the many different devices available, with different hardware and software resources, this plugin ALWAYS shows the notification, trying to use the maximum resources available. If the resource is not available, the notification ignores that specific resource, but shows the rest of notification anyway.

Example: If the device has LED colored lights, use it. Otherwise, ignore the lights, but shows the notification with all another resources available. In last case, shows at least the most basic notification.

Also, the Notification Channels follows the same rule. If there is no channel segregation of notifications, use the channel configuration as only defaults configuration. If the device has channels, use it as expected to be.

And all notifications sent while the app was killed are registered and delivered as soon as possible to the Application, after the plugin initialziation, respecting the delivery order.

This way, your Application will receive all notifications at Flutter level code.

How to show Local Notifications

1. Add awesome_notifications as a dependency in your pubspec.yaml file.

  awesome_notifications: any

2. import the plugin package to your dart code

import 'package:awesome_notifications/awesome_notifications.dart';

3. Initialize the plugin on main.dart, with at least one native icon and one channel

AwesomeNotifications().initialize(
    'resource://drawable/app_icon',
    [
        NotificationChannel(
            channelKey: 'basic_channel',
            channelName: 'Basic notifications',
            channelDescription: 'Notification channel for basic tests',
            defaultColor: Color(0xFF9D50DD),
            ledColor: Colors.white
        )
    ]
);

4. Request the user authorization to send local and push notifications (Remember to show a dialog alert to the user before call this request)

AwesomeNotifications().isNotificationAllowed().then((isAllowed) {
  if (!isAllowed) {
    AwesomeNotifications().requestPermissionToSendNotifications();
  }
});

5. On your main page, starts to listen the notification actions (to detect tap)

AwesomeNotifications().actionStream.listen(
    (receivedNotification){
    
        Navigator.of(context).pushName(context,
            '/NotificationPage',
            arguments: { id: receivedNotification.id } // your page params. I recomend to you to pass all *receivedNotification* object
        );
    
    }
);

6. In any place of your app, create a new notification

AwesomeNotifications().createNotification(
  content: NotificationContent(
      id: 10,
      channelKey: 'basic_channel',
      title: 'Simple Notification',
      body: 'Simple body'
  )
);

THATS IT! CONGRATZ MY FRIEND!!!

iOS Limitations

Due to the way that background task and notification schedules works on iOS, wasn't possible yet to enable all the schedule features on iOS while the app is in Background and even when the app is terminated (Killed).

On Foreground, all notification schedules should work as expected. InitialDate parameter should work as expected at any circunstance.

A support ticket was opened for Apple in order to resolve this issue. You can follow the progress of the process here.

iOS Extra Configurations (Optional)

To activate all the features on iOS, is necessary to include two target extensions to your project:

• Notification Content Extension: allows to use alternative layouts, such as Big text, Progress Bar and Inbox Messages.
• Notification Service Extension: allows to receive push notifications using all Awesome Notifications Features.

OBS: Is not necessary to include both extensions if you do not pretend to use just one of the features. Just include what you need.

Including Notification Service Extension to your project

1- Open your project directely on XCode, opening the file "/{path-to-your-project}/ios/Runner.xcworkspace"

2- Create a new target for Notification Service Extension with File > New > Target and select Notification Service Extension. Name the extension as AwesomeServiceExtension.

3- Edit your Podfile in XCode and replace the last post_install do |installer| branch by code bellow, at the bottom of the file:

This step will compile the framework awesome_notifications to be used on your target extensions

post_install do |installer|
  installer.pods_project.targets.each do |target|
    flutter_additional_ios_build_settings(target)
    if target.name == 'AwesomeServiceExtension' || target.name == 'AwesomeContentExtension'
      target.build_configurations.each do |config|
        config.build_settings['ENABLE_BITCODE'] = 'NO'
        config.build_settings['APPLICATION_EXTENSION_API_ONLY'] = 'NO'
      end
    end
  end
end

target 'AwesomeServiceExtension' do
  use_frameworks!
  use_modular_headers!

  pod 'awesome_notifications', :path => '.symlinks/plugins/awesome_notifications/ios'
end

target 'AwesomeContentExtension' do
  use_frameworks!
  use_modular_headers!

  pod 'awesome_notifications', :path => '.symlinks/plugins/awesome_notifications/ios'
end

5- Go to the terminal, navigate to "/{path-to-your-project}/ios" folder and run pod install to compile the dependencies.

6- Replace the file content in NotificationService.swift by the code bellow:

import UserNotifications
import awesome_notifications

@available(iOS 10.0, *)
class NotificationService: UNNotificationServiceExtension {
    
    var awesomeServiceExtension:AwesomeServiceExtension?
    
    override func didReceive(
        _ request: UNNotificationRequest,
        withContentHandler contentHandler: @escaping (UNNotificationContent) -> Void
    ){
        self.awesomeServiceExtension = AwesomeServiceExtension()
        awesomeServiceExtension?.didReceive(request, withContentHandler: contentHandler)
    }
    
    override func serviceExtensionTimeWillExpire() {
        if let awesomeServiceExtension = awesomeServiceExtension {
            awesomeServiceExtension.serviceExtensionTimeWillExpire()
        }
    }

}

7- Certifies to disable Enable Bitcode and Require Only App-Extension-Safe API setting it to 'NO'

Including Notification Content Extension to your project

WORK IN PROGRESS

Using Firebase Services (Optional)

To activate the Firebase Cloud Messaging service, please follow these steps:

Android

First things first, to create your Firebase Cloud Message and send notifications even when your app is terminated (killed), go to the Firebase Console and create a new project.

After that, go to "Cloud Messaging" option and add an "Android app", put the packge name of your project (certifies to put the correct one) to generate the file google-services.json.

Download the file and place it inside your android/app folder.

Add the classpath to the [project]/android/build.gradle file. (Firebase ones was already added by the plugin)

dependencies {
    classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.5.0'
    // Add the google services classpath
    classpath 'com.google.gms:google-services:4.3.3'
}

Add the apply plugin to the [project]/android/app/build.gradle file.

// ADD THIS AT THE BOTTOM
apply plugin: 'com.google.gms.google-services'

iOS

In construction...

I will deploy the other platforms as soon as possible. Im doing all by my own, with a lack of resources. Please, be patient.

Firebase Token

The firebase token is necessary to your sever send Push Notifications to the remote device. The token could eventually change and is created to every device installation on each application.

Every token created could be captured on Flutter by this plugin listen to tokenStream.

Error: Invalid Firebase notification content

The notification sent via FCM services MUST respect the types of the respective Notification elements. Otherwise, your notification will be discarded as invalid one. Also, all the payload elements MUST be a String, as the same way as you do in Local Notifications.

Notification Life Cycle

Notifications are received by local code or Push service using native code, so the messages will appears immediately or at schedule time, independent of your application state.

Flutter Streams

The Flutter code will be called as soon as possible using Dart Streams.

createdStream: Fires when a notification is created displayedStream: Fires when a notification is displayed on system status bar actionStream: Fires when a notification is tapped by the user dismissedStream: Fires when a notification is dismissed by the user

	App in Foreground	App in Background	App Terminated (Killed)
Android	Fires all streams immediately after occurs	Fires all streams immediately after occurs	Fires createdStream, displayedStream and dismissedStream after the plugin initializes on Foreground, but fires actionStream immediately after occurs
iOS	Fires all streams immediately after occurs	Fires createdStream, displayedStream and dismissedStream after the app returns to Foreground, but fires actionStream immediately after occurs	Fires createdStream, displayedStream and dismissedStream after the plugin initializes on Foreground, but fires actionStream immediately after occurs

Notification Structures

Notification Layout Types

To show any images on notification, at any place, you need to include the respective source prefix before the path.

Images can be defined using 4 prefix types:

• Default: The default layout. Also is the layout used in case of any failure found on other ones
• BigPicture: Is the layout that shows a big picture and/or a small image.
• BigText: Is the layout that shows more than 2 lines of text.
• Inbox: Is the layout who lists messages or items separated by lines
• ProgressBar: Is the layout that shows a progress bar, such as download progress bar
• Messaging: (in construction)
• MediaPlayer: Is the layout that shows a media controller with action buttons, that allows the user to send commands without brings the application to foreground.

Media Source Types

To show any images on notification, at any place, you need to include the respective source prefix before the path.

Images can be defined using 4 prefix types:

• Asset: images access through Flutter asset method. Example: asset://path/to/image-asset.png
• Network: images access through internet connection. Example: http(s)://url.com/to/image-asset.png
• File: images access through files stored on device. Example: file://path/to/image-asset.png
• Resource: images access through drawable native resources. On Android, those files are stored inside [project]/android/app/src/main/res folder. Example: resource://url.com/to/image-asset.png

OBS: Unfortunately, icons can be only resource media types.

Notification Action Button Types

Notifications action buttons could be classified in 4 types:

• Default: after user taps, the notification bar is closed and an action event is fired.
• InputField: after user taps, a input text field is displayed to capture input by the user.
• DisabledAction: after user taps, the notification bar is closed, but the respective action event is not fired.
• KeepOnTop: after user taps, the notification bar is not closed, but an action event is fired.

Android	App in Foreground	App in Background	App Terminated (Killed)
Default	keeps the app in foreground	brings the app to foreground	brings the app to foreground
InputField	keeps the app in foreground	brings the app to foreground	brings the app to foreground
DisabledAction	keeps the app in foreground	keeps the app in background	keeps the app terminated
KeepOnTop	keeps the app in foreground	keeps the app in background	keeps the app terminated

If the app is terminated (killed):

• Default: Wake up the app.
• InputField: Wake up the app.
• DisabledAction: Does not Wake up the app.
• KeepOnTop: Does not Wake up the app.

Scheduling a notification

Notifications could be scheduled as you wish using two main options:

• initialDate: (YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss) The initial date that schedule should be called by first time. This option has the highest priority among other options.
• crontabSchedule: Crontab expression as repetition rule (with seconds precision), as described in this article
• allowWhileIdle: Determines if notification will send, even when the device is in critical situation, such as low battery.
• preciseSchedule: List of precise dates to schedule a notification multiple times. This option has the lowest priority among other options.

OBS: All dates are set to use UTC timezone.

How to send Push Notifications using Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM)

To send a notification using Awesome Notifications and FCM Services, you need to send a POST request to the address https://fcm.googleapis.com/fcm/send. Due to limitations on Notification body, you should use only the data field as bellow:

OBS: actionButtons and schedule are optional

{
    "to" : "[YOUR APP TOKEN]",
    "collapse_key" : "type_a",
    "data" : {
        "content": {
            "id": 100,
            "channelKey": "big_picture",
            "title": "Huston!\nThe eagle has landed!",
            "body": "A small step for a man, but a giant leap to Flutter's community!",
            "notificationLayout": "BigPicture",
            "largeIcon": "https://avidabloga.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/emmemc3b3riadeneilarmstrong3.jpg",
            "bigPicture": "https://www.dw.com/image/49519617_303.jpg",
            "showWhen": true,
            "autoCancel": true,
            "privacy": "Private"
        },
        "actionButtons": [
            {
                "key": "REPLY",
                "label": "Reply",
                "autoCancel": true,
                "buttonType":  "InputField",
            },
            {
                "key": "ARCHIVE",
                "label": "Archive",
                "autoCancel": true
            }
        ],
        "schedule": {
            "initialDateTime": "2020-08-30 11:00:00",
            "crontabSchedule": "5 38 20 ? * MON-FRI *",
            "allowWhileIdle": true,
            "preciseSchedules": []
        }
    }
}

You can download a example of how to send Push Notifications through FCM using "Postman" here