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Hey there, fellow app developers! Want to keep your users engaged? Push notifications are the perfect way to grab their attention. Today, in our new video tutorial, we’ll guide you through setting up push notifications for Android apps using Appery.io. Let’s dive in!

Here’s a short plan of actions:

Step 1: Create a New Application

First, launch Appery.io and create a new application. Go to Project > App settings > Cordova plugins and enable the Push Notification plugin to get started.

Step 2: Configure Push Settings

Exit the editor and head to the Push Notifications Settings section. Toggle the Enable Push Notification option. Then, we need to specify a database to store device identifiers.

Step 3: Set Up a Database

Navigate to the Databases tab and create a new database. By default, Appery.io provides the predefined Devices collection for storing device IDs and tokens.

Step 4: Link Firebase to Your App

Push notifications on Android require Firebase. You need to get two files:

1.  google-services.json

2. Firebase Admin SDK JSON

So, head to the Firebase console to create a Firebase account if you don’t already have one. Set up a new project and register your Android app. Grab the package name from the Android Settings in Appery.io and enter it into Firebase.

Step 5: Download and Upload Files

Download the `google-services.json` file from Firebase:

And upload it to your Push Notification Settings in Appery.io:

Then, click Next and follow the steps in Firebase to get the Admin SDK file and upload it to Appery.io.

Step 6: Generate Your APK

With everything configured, generate your binary APK file:

Step 7: Test Your Application

Scan the generated code to install the APK on your device:

Launch the app and grant permission to receive push notifications:

Minimize the app, refresh the Devices collection in your database, and you’ll see a new entry for your device:

Step 8: Sending Push Notifications

Go to the Push Notification Sending section in Appery.io. Specify the type of device (Android), and customize the notifications sending options of your message:

Send the test notification and watch it appear on your app’s icon:

Conclusion

And there you have it! You’ve successfully set up push notifications for your Android app using Appery.io. Stay tuned for more tutorials on setting up notifications for iOS, associating devices with users, and sending notifications from Appery.io Server Code.

Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share this post if you found it helpful! Happy coding!

Feel free to leave any questions in the comments below. We’re here to help!

The spring of 2022 is very special for all of us and we, at Appery.io, would like to make this spring release (rolled out last weekend) enjoyable for all of you as well.

With this mission in heart, we are excited to offer you some very special improvements to our Visual App Builder that we believe will make things significantly easier and more elegant developing your mobile apps with Appery.io:

• the first and the most asked feature will be definitely appreciated by those who prefer working with the OUTLINE view: from now on, you will be able to use the old yet simple and reliable “Drag & Drop” to arrange the components on the screen of your mobile app:

What is more: you will be even warned if trying to do something that cannot be implemented for this particular component:

• also, the Appery.io UI Components family now has one more member, Divider, that can be used to to separate other screen items:

• yet another improvement was introduced for more UI components like Card, Checkbox, Datetime, etc.: they can now also be easily styled from under the PROPERTIES > Styles tab. (You might have already had a chance to evaluate the similar functionality for some UI components introduced with our Christmas release).
• two more events were added to the Form component: Form value change and Form status change:

• the next minor but hopefully useful feature is added to the Input component to make login procedure for your app users simpler and less stressfull. Just set the input Type property to Password and select the option to show the password being typed in (set it to True):

• and the last but not least: you can now make good use of quite a few predefined Push Notification services: when in the visual App Builder, simply click the CREATE NEW button and selct the needed Appery.io backend push service(s) to import it (them) from under the Backend Services section:

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