NativeScript Local Notifications Plugin

The Local Notifications plugin allows your app to show notifications when the app is not running. Just like remote push notifications, but a few orders of magnitude easier to set up.

⚠️ Plugin version 4.0.0 should be used with NativeScript 6+. If you have an older tns --version, please use an older plugin version.

⚠️ Looking for NativeScript 7 compatibilty? Go to the NativeScript/plugins repo.

Installation

From the command prompt go to your app's root folder and execute:

tns plugin add nativescript-local-notifications

Setup (since plugin version 3.0.0)

Add this so for iOS 10+ we can do some wiring (set the iOS UNUserNotificationCenter.delegate, to be precise). Not needed if your app loads the plugin on startup anyway.

You'll know you need this if on iOS 10+ notifications are not received by your app or addOnMessageReceivedCallback is not invoked... better safe than sorry, though!

require ("nativescript-local-notifications");

Now you can import the plugin as an object into your .ts file as follows:

// either
import { LocalNotifications } from "nativescript-local-notifications";
// or (if that doesn't work for you)
import * as LocalNotifications from "nativescript-local-notifications";

// then use it as:
LocalNotifications.hasPermission()

Demo apps

NativeScript-Core (XML)

This demo is the one with the most options, so it's a cool one to check out:

git clone https://github.com/EddyVerbruggen/nativescript-local-notifications
cd nativescript-local-notifications/src
npm run demo.ios # or demo.android

NativeScript-Angular

This plugin is part of the plugin showcase app I built using Angular.

There's also a simple Angular demo in this repo:

git clone https://github.com/EddyVerbruggen/nativescript-local-notifications
cd nativescript-local-notifications/src
npm run demo-ng.ios # or demo-ng.android

NativeScript-Vue

We also have a Vue demo:

git clone https://github.com/EddyVerbruggen/nativescript-local-notifications
cd nativescript-local-notifications/src
npm run demo-vue.ios # or demo-vue.android

Plugin API

schedule

On iOS you need to ask permission to schedule a notification. You can have the schedule funtion do that for you automatically (the notification will be scheduled in case the user granted permission), or you can manually invoke requestPermission if that's your thing.

You can pass several options to this function, everything is optional:

option	description
id	A number so you can easily distinguish your notifications. Will be generated if not set.
title	The title which is shown in the statusbar. Default not set.
subtitle	Shown below the title on iOS, and next to the App name on Android. Default not set. All android and iOS >= 10 only.
body	The text below the title. If not provided, the subtitle or title (in this order or priority) will be swapped for it on iOS, as iOS won't display notifications without a body. Default not set on Android, ' ' on iOS, as otherwise the notification won't show up at all.
color	Custom color for the notification icon and title that will be applied when the notification center is expanded. (Android Only)
bigTextStyle	Allow more than 1 line of the body text to show in the notification centre. Mutually exclusive with image. Default false. (Android Only)
groupedMessages	An array of atmost 5 messages that would be displayed using android's notification inboxStyle. Note: The array would be trimed from the top if the messages exceed five. Default not set
groupSummary	An inboxStyle notification summary. Default empty
ticker	On Android you can show a different text in the statusbar, instead of the body. Default not set, so body is used.
at	A JavaScript Date object indicating when the notification should be shown. Default not set (the notification will be shown immediately).
badge	On iOS (and some Android devices) you see a number on top of the app icon. On most Android devices you'll see this number in the notification center. Default not set (0).
sound	Notification sound. For custom notification sound (iOS only), copy the file to App_Resources/iOS. Set this to "default" (or do not set at all) in order to use default OS sound. Set this to null to suppress sound.
interval	Set to one of second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year if you want a recurring notification.
icon	On Android you can set a custom icon in the system tray. Pass in res://filename (without the extension) which lives in App_Resouces/Android/drawable folders. If not passed, we'll look there for a file named ic_stat_notify.png. By default the app icon is used. Android < Lollipop (21) only (see silhouetteIcon below).
silhouetteIcon	Same as icon, but for Android >= Lollipop (21). Should be an alpha-only image. Defaults to res://ic_stat_notify_silhouette, or the app icon if not present.
image	URL (http..) of the image to use as an expandable notification image. On Android this is mutually exclusive with bigTextStyle.
thumbnail	Custom thumbnail/icon to show in the notification center (to the right) on Android, this can be either: true (if you want to use the image as the thumbnail), a resource URL (that lives in the App_Resouces/Android/drawable folders, e.g.: res://filename), or a http URL from anywhere on the web. (Android Only). Default not set.
ongoing	Default is (false). Set whether this is an ongoing notification. Ongoing notifications cannot be dismissed by the user, so your application must take care of canceling them. (Android Only)
channel	Default is (Channel). Set the channel name for Android API >= 26, which is shown when the user longpresses a notification. (Android Only)
forceShowWhenInForeground	Default is false. Set to true to always show the notification. Note that on iOS < 10 this is ignored (the notification is not shown), and on newer Androids it's currently ignored as well (the notification always shows, per platform default).
priority	Default is 0. Will override forceShowWhenInForeground if set. This can be set to 2 for Android "heads-up" notifications. See #114 for details.
actions	Add an array of NotificationAction objects (see below) to add buttons or text input to a notification.
notificationLed	Enable the notification LED light on Android (if supported by the device), this can be either: true (if you want to use the default color), or a custom color for the notification LED light (if supported by the device). (Android Only). Default not set.

NotificationAction

option	description
id	An id so you can easily distinguish your actions.
type	Either button or input.
title	The label for type = button.
launch	Launch the app when the action completes.
submitLabel	The submit button label for type = input.
placeholder	The placeholder text for type = input.

  LocalNotifications.schedule([{
    id: 1, // generated id if not set
    title: 'The title',
    body: 'Recurs every minute until cancelled',
    ticker: 'The ticker',
    color: new Color("red"),
    badge: 1,
    groupedMessages:["The first", "Second", "Keep going", "one more..", "OK Stop"], //android only
    groupSummary:"Summary of the grouped messages above", //android only
    ongoing: true, // makes the notification ongoing (Android only)
    icon: 'res://heart',
    image: "https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/1*c3cQvYJrVezv_Az0CoDcbA.jpeg",
    thumbnail: true,
    interval: 'minute',
    channel: 'My Channel', // default: 'Channel'
    sound: "customsound-ios.wav", // falls back to the default sound on Android
    at: new Date(new Date().getTime() + (10 * 1000)) // 10 seconds from now
  }]).then(
      function(scheduledIds) {
        console.log("Notification id(s) scheduled: " + JSON.stringify(scheduledIds));
      },
      function(error) {
        console.log("scheduling error: " + error);
      }
  )

Notification icons (Android)

These options default to res://ic_stat_notify and res://ic_stat_notify_silhouette respectively, or the app icon if not present.

silhouetteIcon should be an alpha-only image and will be used in Android >= Lollipop (21).

These are the official icon size guidelines, and here's a great guide on how to easily create these icons on Android.

Density qualifier	px	dpi
ldpi	18 × 18	120
mdpi	24 × 24	160
hdpi	36 × 36	240
xhdpi	48 × 48	320
xxhdpi	72 × 72	480
xxxhdpi	96 × 96	640 approx.

Source: Density Qualifier Docs

addOnMessageReceivedCallback

Tapping a notification in the notification center will launch your app. But what if you scheduled two notifications and you want to know which one the user tapped?

Use this function to have a callback invoked when a notification was used to launch your app. Note that on iOS it will even be triggered when your app is in the foreground and a notification is received.

  LocalNotifications.addOnMessageReceivedCallback(
      function (notification) {
        console.log("ID: " + notification.id);
        console.log("Title: " + notification.title);
        console.log("Body: " + notification.body);
      }
  ).then(
      function() {
        console.log("Listener added");
      }
  )

getScheduledIds

If you want to know the ID's of all notifications which have been scheduled, do this:

Note that all functions have an error handler as well (see schedule), but to keep things readable we won't repeat ourselves.

  LocalNotifications.getScheduledIds().then(
      function(ids) {
        console.log("ID's: " + ids);
      }
  )

cancel

If you want to cancel a previously scheduled notification (and you know its ID), you can cancel it:

  LocalNotifications.cancel(5 /* the ID */).then(
      function(foundAndCanceled) {
          if (foundAndCanceled) {
            console.log("OK, it's gone!");
          } else {
            console.log("No ID 5 was scheduled");
          }
      }
  )

cancelAll

If you just want to cancel all previously scheduled notifications, do this:

  LocalNotifications.cancelAll();

requestPermission

On Android you don't need permission, but on iOS you do. Android will simply return true.

If the requestPermission or schedule function previously ran the user has already been prompted to grant permission. If the user granted permission this function returns true, but if he denied permission this function will return false, since an iOS can only request permission once. In which case the user needs to go to the iOS settings app and manually enable permissions for your app.

  LocalNotifications.requestPermission().then(
      function(granted) {
        console.log("Permission granted? " + granted);
      }
  )

hasPermission

On Android you don't need permission, but on iOS you do. Android will simply return true.

If the requestPermission or schedule functions previously ran you may want to check whether or not the user granted permission:

  LocalNotifications.hasPermission().then(
      function(granted) {
        console.log("Permission granted? " + granted);
      }
  )