Notifications

Alexander Nelson

October 4, 2021

University of Arkansas - Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering

Notifications

Notifications

A notification is a message which is displayed to the user outside

of the normal User Interface

https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/notifiers/notifications.html

These slides are modifications based on work created and shared by the

Android Open Source Project and used according to terms described in the

Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution License.

Notifications

When a notification is issued, it appears

in the notification area

To see details, a user may open the

notification drawer

Both the notification area and drawer

are system controlled, and the user may

view them at any time

Notification Design

Notifications have their own design style guide:

https://material.io/design/platform-guidance/android-

notifications.html

This guide has a lot of really good information from a UI design

perspective that can be consulted

Creating a Notification

UI information and actions are determined in a

NotifiactionCompat.Builder object

Created using the Builder.build() function, which returns a

Notification object with the specifications

Issued using the NotificationManager.notify() method

Required Contents

A notification must contain the following:

• setSmallIcon() – sets the small icon

• setContentTitle() – Title for the notification

• setContentText() – sets the detail text

• setChannelId() – set a channel (for API 26 and above)

Optional Notification Contents

Action – Allow directly placing the user in the Activity that the

notification addresses

• Defined by a PendingIntent that starts an Activity

• If not the home screen, create an artificial back stack

Click Behavior – Associate a PendingIntent with a click/swipe

behavior

• Set click behavior with setContentIntent()

• Set swipe or delete notification with setDeleteIntent()

Notification priority

Priorities based on channels after API 26

Use NotificationChannel.setImportance(int)

Importance Values:

• IMPORTANCE UNSPECIFIED

• IMPORTANCE NONE

• IMPORTANCE MIN

• IMPORTANCE LOW

• IMPORTANCE DEFAULT

• IMPORTANCE HIGH

Optional Notification Contents

• Sounds – setSound()

• Color – setColorized() - should only be used for high priority

ongoing tasks

• setFullScreenIntent() – Can be used to directly launch app.

Very disruptive if not needed

• setLights() – Used to manipulate LED on device

• More on reference page for NotificationCompat.Builder

Build Simple Notification

Create explicit intent for the activity “ResultActivity.class”

.setChannelId() for API 26 and later

Build Simple Notification

Create artificial back stack navigating to the correct activity

.setContentIntent() chooses the click action

Build Simple Notification

Get instance of the Notification Manager

.build() builds the notification from the Builder object

NotificationManager instance’s .notify() method shows the

notification

Expanded Layouts

You may want to use larger notifications for specific purposes

The following table describes a few:

Style Description

BigPictureStyle Notifications that include a large

image attachment

BigTextStyle Notifications that include a lot of

text

DecoratedCustomViewStyle Custom views that are decorated

by the system

InboxStyle Nnotifications that include a list

of (up to 5) strings

More at https://developer.android.com/reference/

android/support/v4/app/NotificationCompat.Style.html

Updating a Notification

Often better to update an existing notification rather than issue a

new one

To update, issue notifications using the same notification ID

If a notification exists with that ID, the notification is updated

Updating a Notification

Android limits the rate at which notifications may be updated

Posting updates too frequently can result in dropped notifications

setOnlyAlertOnce() – Allow providing sound/vibrate/ticker for

notifications on just the original notification, not updates

Updating a Notification

Removing a Notification

Notifications remain visible until:

• User dismisses the notification (individually or clear all)

• User clicks notification, and setAutoCancel() is specified for

notification

• cancel() is called for the notification ID

• cancelAll() is called, removing all notifications issued by the

application

• setTimeoutAfter() – System cancels notification after a

duration elapses

Preserving Navigation

When an activity is started from a notification, you should consider

the user’s expected experience

e.g. If you start a second layer activity, pressing back should return

to the main application activity

Two general situations: Regular Activity, Special Activity

Regular Activity

If starting activity that is part of App’s normal workflow:

• set PendingIntent() to start fresh task

• provide PendingIntent() with back stack reproducing the

normal back behavior

Setting up Regular Activity PendingIntent

To provoide a PendingIntent that starts a direct Activity:

1. Define Activity hierarchy in manifest

2. Create back stack based on the Intent that starts the Activity

Defining Hierarchy

For Android 4.0.3 and lower:

• Specify parent by adding a <meta-data>

• Parameters are:

• android:name=“android.support.PARENT ACTIVITY”

• android:value=“.MainActivity”

For Android 4.1 and later:

• Add android:parentActivityName tag

Create back stack

To create the back stack for the activity

• Create the Intent to start the Activity

• Create a stack builder object

• Add back stack to stack builder by calling addParentStack()

• Add the Intent that starts the Activity with addNextIntent()

• Add any arguments to the Intent objects with .editIntentAt()

• Get a PendingIntent for the backstack by calling

getPendingIntent()

Example Create Back Stack Automatically

If each activity has it’s parent defined:

Example Create Back Stack Manually

Special Activity

For an Activity that only occurs through a notification, it doesn’t

make sense to return to the application

In this case, pressing back should return to the Home screen

Set up Special Activity PendingIntent

Special Activity doesn’t need a back stack

No need to define its parent in the manifest

Instead, get PendingIntent by calling getActivity()

Special Activity Manifest

Special parameters:

• android:launchMode=“singleTask”

• android:taskAffinity=“”

• android:excludeFromRecents=“true”

These three make sure that the activity is launched and not the

default, and that it wont show up in the recent applications so user

can’t navigate back to the special activity

Build and Issue Notification

To build the notification:

1. Create an Intent to start the Activity

2. Set the Activity to start in a new, empty task, by callingsetFlags() with:

• FLAG ACTIVITY NEW TASK

• FLAG ACTIVITY CLEAR TASK

3. Set any other options

4. Create PendingIntent by calling getActivity()

Example Special Activity

Example Special Activity

Notification Options

Heads-Up Notification

Notifications can briefly appear in a floating window

For actions the user should know about immediately

Triggering Actions:

• Foreground activity is in fullscreen mode

• Notification has high priority & uses ringtones/vibration (API

25 and lower)

• Notification channel has high importance (API 26+)

Lock Screen

Notifications can appear on the lock screen

Notifications should programattically define level of detail available

on the lock screen

API 26+, users can choose to disable/enable lock screen

notifications for each channel

More information - Lock Screen Visibility

Badges

In supported launchers running on devices of Android 8.0 (API 26:

Oreo), apps may:

• Display notification badges on app icons

• Long-press on app icon to glance at notifications associated

with a badge

Reply to a Notification

API level 24 (Nougat) and higher

Users can respond directly to

notifications inside the dialog

using inline actions

Add Inline Reply Action

To enable this behavior:

1. Create instance of RemoteInput.Builder

2. Attach RemoteInput object to an action with

addRemoteInput()

3. Apply the action to a notification and issue the notification

Retrieve user input from Inline Reply

If user chooses reply action, you get the reply by:

1. getResultsFromIntent(intent) – Returns a Bundle that

contains the text response

2. Query the bundle using the result key

3. Build and issue another notification to show that reply action

succeeded

Bundling Notifications

Also API 24 (Nougat), notifications may be bundled to represent a

queue of notifications

Use Bulder.setGroup() to bundle similar notifications

Bundling Notifications

These notification groups provide

a parent notification, which may

be expanded to show child

notifications

These child notifications may in

turn be expanded to show its

entire content

If the same app sends four or more notification with no group,

Android will automatically bundle them

When to Bundle

Bundle notifications if the following are true:

• Child notifications are complete notifications – Can be

displayed without need of group summary

• There is a benefit to surfacing the child notification, e.g.

• They are actionable, and actions are specific to a child

• There is more information to the child that may need to be

read

Notification Channels

Starting with Android 8.0, notification channels allow creation of

user-customizable channel for each type of notification

Allows user specification of channels to determine how a

notification is shown