android-remote-notifications

A Google GCM/Amazon SNS alternative using pull instead of push.

Main features

• Independent user notifications (no Google GCM or Amazon SNS), just put a JSON file in the cloud
• Framework will update available notifications automatically in defined time intervals (now, daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly)
• Flexible parameters:
  • start date for notification (distribute early, show later)
  • amount of times the notification should be shown
  • interval between showing notifications (always, every day, every week, every month)
  • specify on which app version (versionCode) the notification should be shown
• Show notifications as AlertDialog or Toast message (defined by the remote JSON file)
  • AlertDialog: Specify button captions and actions: Open Store-Action, Open URL-Action, Exit App-Action, all defined by a JSON file on your server
• perfect to inform your users about discounts on one of your other apps or premium version
• pro tip: as some users don't always update to the latest app versions you should integrate this framework in an early phase if you plan to use it at a later time.

Download

Gradle:

implementation ('com.github.kaiwinter:android-remote-notifications:1.1.5@aar') {
    transitive = true
}

Demo:

• Demo App
• Live Demo: Appetize.io

How to integrate

You can find the source code of the example app here: MainActivity

The easy way

• Call RemoteNotifications.start(context, url, UpdatePolicy.NOW); in your onCreate() or onResume() method

this will

• start an update of the notifications (use UpdatePolicy.WEEKLY in production environment to update once a week)
• show due notifications to the user

For more control

RemoteNotifications rn = new RemoteNotifications(context, url);
rn.updateNotifications(UpdatePolicy.NOW);
rn.showNotifications(); // if update still runs, event will be queued and carried out later

// -or, register a listener on update completion-
rn.updateNotifications(UpdatePolicy.NOW, finishListener);

How to build a JSON notification file

First: You don´t have to write the JSON file by hand. Just use the API to initialize a Notification object and then create JSON from it: NotificationCreatorUtil

Example of a Toast Notification

[
  {
    "type": "ToastNotification",
    "notificationConfiguration": {
      "startShowingDate": null,
      "executionPolicy": "ALWAYS",
      "numberOfTotalViews": null,
      "versionCodePolicy": null
    },
    "message": "This is a Toast Notification",
    "duration": 1
  }
]

Example of an AlertDialog Notification

[
  {
    "type": "AlertDialogNotification",
    "notificationConfiguration": {
      "startShowingDate": null,
      "executionPolicy": "ALWAYS",
      "numberOfTotalViews": null,
      "versionCodePolicy": null
    },
    "title": "Title",
    "message": "This is an AlertDialog notification",
    "negativeButtonText": "Exit App",
    "neutralButtonText": "Open web page",
    "positiveButtonText": "Open Play Store",
    "positiveButtonAction": {
      "type": "OpenStoreButtonAction",
      "packageName": "de.vorlesungsfrei.taekwondo.ads"
    },
    "negativeButtonAction": {
      "type": "ExitAppButtonAction"
    },
    "neutralButtonAction": {
      "type": "OpenUrlButtonAction",
      "link": "https://github.com/kaiwinter/android-remote-notifications"
    },
    "modal": false
  }
]

Screenshots

License

 Copyright 2018 Kai Winter
 
 Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 You may obtain a copy of the License at
 
     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 
 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 limitations under the License.