NON_FIREBASE_MESSAGING.md

If you read this, chances are you want Push Notifications, but want to use a third-party push service instead of interfacing with Firebase Cloud Messaging directly.

You'll be 😃 to learn this plugin has a lite mode that won't add any native Firebase dependencies (or Pod libraries) on iOS, and only the bare necessities on Android (on Android, Push Messaging will always use FCM, regardless the push service).

Go to you app's root folder and remove firebase.nativescript.json, then run npm i. You will be prompted "Are you using this plugin ONLY as a Push Notification client for an external (non-Firebase) Push service? (y/n)". Answer:

• y if you don't want to use any of the Firebase features (Firestore, Realtime DB, Storage, etc), or
• n in case you do want to use some of the features (you will be asked which features later).

The remainder of this document applies to both situations, so please continue reading.

Demo app

I've tried applying best practices to a dedicated push-only demo app.

Two important things to keep in mind are:

• require (not import!) the plugin in app.js/app.ts (or main.ts, or any other file that bootstraps your app).
• Show your own consent screen before iOS requests permission, because a) the default popup (that'll also still be shown) isn't very friendly/configurable, and b) once the user denies permission they have to go to the settings app as you app can only request permission once.

Setup

Do not run the plugin's .init function!

Android

No additional setup required.

There is a little quirk: you will currently not get the title and body if the notification was received while the application was in the background, but you will get the data payload.

iOS

Enable push support in Xcode

Open /platforms/ios/yourproject.xcworkspace (!) and go to your project's target and head over to "Capabilities" to switch this on (if it isn't already):

Without this enabled you will receive push messages in the foreground, but NOT in the background / when the app is killed.

Copy the entitlements file

The previous step created a the fileplatforms/ios/YourAppName/(Resources/)YourAppName.entitlements. Copy that file to app/App_Resources/iOS/ (if it doesn't exist yet, otherwise merge its contents), so it's not removed when you remove and re-add the iOS platform. The relevant content for background push in that file is:

	<key>aps-environment</key>
	<string>development</string>

Note that the filename can either be <YourAppName>.entitlements or app.entitlements, where YourAppName is the iOS foldername, see the path above.

Configure push notifications in Info.plist

Tell the plugin to allow an external push provider by adding this to App_Resources/iOS/Info.plist (without this, the push token will always be undefined!):

<key>UseExternalPushProvider</key>
<true/>

And to allow processing when a background push is received, add this as well:

<key>UIBackgroundModes</key>
<array>
  <string>remote-notification</string>
</array>

The end result should look like this.

API

areNotificationsEnabled

On both iOS and Android the user can disable notifications for your app. If you want to check the current state of this setting, you can do:

import { messaging, Message } from "nativescript-plugin-firebase/messaging";

console.log(`Notifications enabled? ${messaging.areNotificationsEnabled()}`);

registerForPushNotifications

The easiest way to register for (receiving) push notifications is calling registerForPushNotifications, and passing in a few handlers:

import { messaging, Message } from "nativescript-plugin-firebase/messaging";

messaging.registerForPushNotifications({
  onPushTokenReceivedCallback: (token: string): void => {
    console.log("Firebase plugin received a push token: " + token);
  },

  onMessageReceivedCallback: (message: Message) => {
    console.log("Push message received: " + message.title);
  },

  // Whether you want this plugin to automatically display the notifications or just notify the callback. Currently used on iOS only. Default true.
  showNotifications: true,

  // Whether you want this plugin to always handle the notifications when the app is in foreground. Currently used on iOS only. Default false.
  showNotificationsWhenInForeground: true
}).then(() => console.log("Registered for push"));

Any pending notifications (while your app was not in the foreground) will trigger the onMessageReceivedCallback handler.

With the token received in onPushTokenReceivedCallback you can send a notification to this device.

getCurrentPushToken

If - for some reason - you need to manually retrieve the current push registration token of the device, you can do:

import { messaging } from "nativescript-plugin-firebase/messaging";

messaging.getCurrentPushToken()
    .then(token => console.log(`Current push token: ${token}`));

Interactive notifications (iOS only for now)

To register the app to receive interactive pushes you need to call messaging.registerForInteractivePush(model). And you may hook to the model.onNotificationActionTakenCallback callback to know what action the user took interacting with the notification.

Each action has either type button or input, and you can set options to do any or all of:

• Launch the app: foreground.
• Only allow the action when the device is unlocked: authenticationRequired.
• Make the text red to indicate something will be removed/deleted/killed: destructive.

Consider this example, where an interactive push notification is received which the user expands and picks the fourth option. He then types his reply, and (because of how the action was configured) the app launches and captures the reply.

import { messaging, Message } from "nativescript-plugin-firebase/messaging";

const model = new messaging.PushNotificationModel();
model.iosSettings = new messaging.IosPushSettings();
model.iosSettings.badge = false;
model.iosSettings.alert = true;

model.iosSettings.interactiveSettings = new messaging.IosInteractivePushSettings();
model.iosSettings.interactiveSettings.actions = [
  {
    identifier: "OPEN_ACTION",
    title: "Open the app (if closed)",
    options: messaging.IosInteractiveNotificationActionOptions.foreground
  },
  {
    identifier: "AUTH",
    title: "Open the app, but only if device is not locked with a passcode",
    options: messaging.IosInteractiveNotificationActionOptions.foreground | messaging.IosInteractiveNotificationActionOptions.authenticationRequired
  },
  {
    identifier: "INPUT_ACTION",
    title: "Tap to reply without opening the app",
    type: "input",
    submitLabel: "Fire!",
    placeholder: "Load the gun..."
  },
  {
    identifier: "INPUT_ACTION",
    title: "Tap to reply and open the app",
    options: messaging.IosInteractiveNotificationActionOptions.foreground,
    type: "input",
    submitLabel: "OK, send it",
    placeholder: "Type here, baby!"
  },
  {
    identifier: "DELETE_ACTION",
    title: "Delete without opening the app",
    options: messaging.IosInteractiveNotificationActionOptions.destructive
  }
];

model.iosSettings.interactiveSettings.categories = [{
  identifier: "GENERAL"
}];

model.onNotificationActionTakenCallback = (actionIdentifier: string, message: Message) => {
  console.log(`onNotificationActionTakenCallback fired! Message: ${JSON.stringify(message)}, Action taken: ${actionIdentifier}`);
};

messaging.registerForInteractivePush(model);

To send an interactive push, add the "category" property to the notification, with a value corresponding to the category defined in the model you've registered in the app. The payload to trigger the notification in the screenshots above is:

{
  "aps": {
    "alert": {
      "title": "Realtime Custom Push Notifications",
      "subtitle": "Now with iOS 10 support!",
      "body": "Add multimedia content to your notifications"
    },
    "sound": "default",
    "badge": 1,
    "category": "GENERAL",
    "showWhenInForeground": true,
    "data": {
      "foo": "bar"
    }
  }
}

IMPORTANT Use the click_action only for push notifications on iOS. When such a message is tapped in the Android notification center the app WON'T be opened. This will probably be fixed in the future.

Testing push notifications

iOS

For testing notifications on iOS the easiest tool I found is Pusher:

Android

For testing on Android I prefer using Postman to POST to the FCM REST API. Look at which headers you need to set, and how the payload needs to be added: