How to implement interactive notifications ios8

Question

I'm creating a timed todo list app in which users can start a timer from a lock screen notification by swiping to reveal a start button. This is a new feature shown in iOS 8 but there is little documentation showing how to implement this feature. Can anyone show how I would go about setting up the 'start' action and the block of code which runs when this is pressed? If the app were closed would this feature still work?

Answer 1

@Shubhendu thanks for the link. For those of you who don't want to have to sit through the video, here's a quick recap of what you need to do in order to include interactive notifications in you application.

• Define all the actions that the user may execute from your app's notifications. These actions are created using the UIMutableUserNotificationAction class.

  UIMutableUserNotificationAction *action = [[UIMutableUserNotificationAction alloc] init];
  action.identifier = @"ACTION_ID"; // The id passed when the user selects the action
  action.title = NSLocalizedString(@"Title",nil); // The title displayed for the action
  action.activationMode = UIUserNotificationActivationModeBackground; // Choose whether the application is launched in foreground when the action is clicked
  action.destructive = NO; // If YES, then the action is red
  action.authenticationRequired = NO; // Whether the user must authenticate to execute the action
  

• Place these actions into categories. Each category defines a group of actions that a user may execute from a notification. These categories are created using UIMutableUserNotificationCategory.

  UIMutableUserNotificationCategory *category = [[UIMutableUserNotificationCategory alloc] init];
  category.identifier = @"CATEGORY_ID"; // Identifier passed in the payload
  [category setActions:@[action] forContext:UIUserNotificationActionContextDefault]; // The context determines the number of actions presented (see documentation) 
  

• Register the categories in the settings. Note that registering the categories doesn't replace asking for user permission to send remote notifications,using [[UIApplication sharedApplication] registerForRemoteNotifications]

  NSSet *categories = [NSSet setWithObjects:category, nil];
  NSUInteger types = UIUserNotificationTypeNone; // Add badge, sound, or alerts here
  UIUserNotificationSettings *settings = [UIUSerNotificationSettings settingsForTypes:types categories:categories];
  [[UIApplication sharedApplication] registerUserNotificationSettings:settings];
  

• Send the identifier of the category in the notification payload.

  {
      "aps":{
          "alert":"Here's a notification",
          ...
          "category":"CATEGORY_ID"
      }
  }
  

• Handle user actions in the app delegate by implementing the UIApplicationDelegate protocol methods: application:handleActionWithIdentifier:forRemoteNotification:completionHandler: for remote notifications application:handleActionWithIdentifier:forLocalNotification:completionHandler: for local notifications

Answer 2

STEP 1:

NSString * const NotificationCategoryIdent  = @"ACTIONABLE";
NSString * const NotificationActionOneIdent = @"ACTION_ONE";
NSString * const NotificationActionTwoIdent = @"ACTION_TWO";

- (void)registerForNotification {

    UIMutableUserNotificationAction *action1;
    action1 = [[UIMutableUserNotificationAction alloc] init];
    [action1 setActivationMode:UIUserNotificationActivationModeBackground];
    [action1 setTitle:@"Action 1"];
    [action1 setIdentifier:NotificationActionOneIdent];
    [action1 setDestructive:NO];
    [action1 setAuthenticationRequired:NO];

    UIMutableUserNotificationAction *action2;
    action2 = [[UIMutableUserNotificationAction alloc] init];
    [action2 setActivationMode:UIUserNotificationActivationModeBackground];
    [action2 setTitle:@"Action 2"];
    [action2 setIdentifier:NotificationActionTwoIdent];
    [action2 setDestructive:NO];
    [action2 setAuthenticationRequired:NO];

    UIMutableUserNotificationCategory *actionCategory;
    actionCategory = [[UIMutableUserNotificationCategory alloc] init];
    [actionCategory setIdentifier:NotificationCategoryIdent];
    [actionCategory setActions:@[action1, action2] 
                    forContext:UIUserNotificationActionContextDefault];

    NSSet *categories = [NSSet setWithObject:actionCategory];
    UIUserNotificationType types = (UIUserNotificationTypeAlert|
                                    UIUserNotificationTypeSound|
                                    UIUserNotificationTypeBadge);

    UIUserNotificationSettings *settings;
    settings = [UIUserNotificationSettings settingsForTypes:types
                                                 categories:categories];

    [[UIApplication sharedApplication] registerUserNotificationSettings:settings];
}

STEP 2: To send this type of notification simply add the category to the payload.

{  
    "aps" : { 
        "alert"    : "Pull down to interact.",
        "category" : "ACTIONABLE"
    }
}

STEP 3: Use this method

application:handleActionWithIdentifier:forRemoteNotification:completionHand
ler:

[application:handleActionWithIdentifier:forLocalNotification:completionHandler:
 -> For LOCAL Notification]

- (void)application:(UIApplication *)application handleActionWithIdentifier:(NSString *)identifier forRemoteNotification:(NSDictionary *)userInfo completionHandler:(void (^)())completionHandler {

    if ([identifier isEqualToString:NotificationActionOneIdent]) {

        NSLog(@"You chose action 1.");
    }
    else if ([identifier isEqualToString:NotificationActionTwoIdent]) {   

        NSLog(@"You chose action 2.");
    }    
    if (completionHandler) {

        completionHandler();
    }
}

1.Refer link: Obj C tutorial

2.Swift Code Tutorial here