Background notifications delivery timestamp

Solar2D Android
#1

Hello everyone,

I’ve been developing with Corona for a few months now, but I really need to understand if something is doable or not… it’s sort of a game changer otherwise. I’m working on an Android-only app at the moment.

First of all I’m ok with LUA not being called when my app receives a notification and it’s in background.

I can always read the payload when the user clicks on the badge and all is good, but I really need the delivery time of the notification in the event and I can’t seem to find a way to access it. It would be trivial in pure Java to timestamp the notification in the background service, but seems like I would need an Enterprise license just to do that… 

Anyone can help here? I’m stuck and really considering alternatives if this can’t be done at all…

Thanks,

Ivan

#2

Hi Ivan,

Can you share a bit of code on what you’re doing to dispatch the notification currently? Please surround the code with “lua” tags for clarity in the forum thread:

[lua] -- code [/lua]

Thanks,

Brent

#3

Hi Brent,

the code is just a notification listener and works just fine. I was asking if there was a way somehow to access the delivery timestamp (as in the ms timestamp of when the background service received the notification in case the app is hibernated/closed). I need it for a simple chat system I’m implementing in the game I’m developing.

I need to show the users at what time the message was received (not sent from the server).

Also, the server sometimes sends a notification prompting the user to tap it within a specified amount of time… but if I don’t know when it’s received I really can’t make it work.

Any help is really super appreciated at the moment, 'cause I’m totally lost in code :slight_smile:

Thanks a lot,

Ivan

#4

Which push notification service are you using?

#5

Standard GCM in conjunction with my own java server for packing and sending the notifications.

#6

Hi Brent,

just a little ping to know if I have to give up or it’s something doable (maybe a little update to the platform? :P).

Thanks a lot,

Ivan

#7

Our engineers suggest that you try and package a timestamp in your custom table. You can get the UTC unix time and save it as a string (in case the number exceeds some max limits). You can look at our sample app:  SampleCode/System/GooglePushNotifications to see an example of how to work with a custom table.

Rob

#8

Hi Rob,

the fact is that I don’t need the time from the server, I need the time of when the notification is received. I can’t rely on a server timestamp for many reasons (out of network, phone turned off, airplane mode, etc…). In java I’d simply timestamp the message in the background receiver and push it in a queue for later handling, but in Corona I don’t get anything when my app is in background so I can’t interact with the raw notification. Consider for example a chat system: how can I tell the server when a message has been delivered if I only have access to the data when the user clicks on the notification? Also, as I said in a previous message, our server randomly sends a notification to a client and the user has X seconds to click it to get some reward… but I can’t know when the notification has been received, so I can start counting only after the user clicks on it and wakes the app. As this is quite crucial for our game logic I need to know if, even in the near future, the notifications could be timestamped upon being received or not.

Thanks a lot for the support,

Ivan

#9

We don’t support time-stamping push notifications when it’s received in the background and there really isn’t a practical way to do it in Corona Enterprise either.

Rob

#10

Hi Rob,

I know I’m asking something unusual, but would it be possible to just add it in the background receiver before sending the table to lua? I mean, I know I’m asking for a platform modification, but it could come really useful for other users too.

If this is not possible then I’ll have to fallback to a more complex but standard development pipeline with android studio and pure java… but I really wouldn’t want to go that route unless it’s really necessary…

Thanks a lot,

Ivan

#11

Hi Ivan,

Can you share a bit of code on what you’re doing to dispatch the notification currently? Please surround the code with “lua” tags for clarity in the forum thread:

[lua] -- code [/lua]

Thanks,

Brent

#12

Hi Brent,

the code is just a notification listener and works just fine. I was asking if there was a way somehow to access the delivery timestamp (as in the ms timestamp of when the background service received the notification in case the app is hibernated/closed). I need it for a simple chat system I’m implementing in the game I’m developing.

I need to show the users at what time the message was received (not sent from the server).

Also, the server sometimes sends a notification prompting the user to tap it within a specified amount of time… but if I don’t know when it’s received I really can’t make it work.

Any help is really super appreciated at the moment, 'cause I’m totally lost in code :slight_smile:

Thanks a lot,

Ivan

#13

Which push notification service are you using?

#14

Standard GCM in conjunction with my own java server for packing and sending the notifications.

#15

Hi Brent,

just a little ping to know if I have to give up or it’s something doable (maybe a little update to the platform? :P).

Thanks a lot,

Ivan

#16

Our engineers suggest that you try and package a timestamp in your custom table. You can get the UTC unix time and save it as a string (in case the number exceeds some max limits). You can look at our sample app:  SampleCode/System/GooglePushNotifications to see an example of how to work with a custom table.

Rob

#17

Hi Rob,

the fact is that I don’t need the time from the server, I need the time of when the notification is received. I can’t rely on a server timestamp for many reasons (out of network, phone turned off, airplane mode, etc…). In java I’d simply timestamp the message in the background receiver and push it in a queue for later handling, but in Corona I don’t get anything when my app is in background so I can’t interact with the raw notification. Consider for example a chat system: how can I tell the server when a message has been delivered if I only have access to the data when the user clicks on the notification? Also, as I said in a previous message, our server randomly sends a notification to a client and the user has X seconds to click it to get some reward… but I can’t know when the notification has been received, so I can start counting only after the user clicks on it and wakes the app. As this is quite crucial for our game logic I need to know if, even in the near future, the notifications could be timestamped upon being received or not.

Thanks a lot for the support,

Ivan

#18

We don’t support time-stamping push notifications when it’s received in the background and there really isn’t a practical way to do it in Corona Enterprise either.

Rob

#19

Hi Rob,

I know I’m asking something unusual, but would it be possible to just add it in the background receiver before sending the table to lua? I mean, I know I’m asking for a platform modification, but it could come really useful for other users too.

If this is not possible then I’ll have to fallback to a more complex but standard development pipeline with android studio and pure java… but I really wouldn’t want to go that route unless it’s really necessary…

Thanks a lot,

Ivan