Push notifications are a powerful way to engage users by delivering timely and relevant information directly to their devices. They provide a means to communicate with users even when they are not actively using your application. In this chapter, we will explore how to implement push notifications in a web application using jQuery. We will cover the basics of push notifications, setting up a push notification service, integrating it with jQuery, handling permissions, and displaying notifications.
Push notifications are messages sent by a server to a client application. They can be displayed on a user’s device even when the application is not active. Push notifications can be used for various purposes such as reminding users about updates, promoting new features, or delivering personalized content.
There are several push notification services available, such as Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM), OneSignal, and Pushwoosh. For this chapter, we will use Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) due to its popularity and ease of use.
apiKey
, authDomain
, projectId
, and messagingSenderId
.Include the Firebase SDK in your HTML file and initialize Firebase.
Push Notifications with jQuery
Use the Notification API to request permission from the user to display notifications.
$(document).ready(function() {
$('#enable-notifications').on('click', function() {
Notification.requestPermission().then(function(permission) {
if (permission === 'granted') {
console.log('Notification permission granted.');
// TODO: Get FCM token and start receiving notifications
} else {
console.log('Notification permission denied.');
}
});
});
});
Once the user grants permission, obtain the FCM token to uniquely identify the user’s device
var messaging = firebase.messaging();
messaging.getToken({ vapidKey: 'YOUR_VAPID_KEY' }).then((currentToken) => {
if (currentToken) {
console.log('FCM Token:', currentToken);
// TODO: Send the token to your server and save it for later use
} else {
console.log('No registration token available. Request permission to generate one.');
}
}).catch((err) => {
console.log('An error occurred while retrieving token. ', err);
});
You can check the current permission status using the Notification API.
function checkNotificationPermission() {
if (Notification.permission === 'granted') {
console.log('Notification permission granted.');
} else if (Notification.permission === 'denied') {
console.log('Notification permission denied.');
} else {
console.log('Notification permission not requested yet.');
}
}
$(document).ready(function() {
checkNotificationPermission();
});
Use the Notification API to display a simple notification.
function showNotification(title, options) {
if (Notification.permission === 'granted') {
new Notification(title, options);
}
}
$(document).ready(function() {
$('#show-notification').on('click', function() {
var options = {
body: 'This is a sample notification.',
icon: 'icon.png'
};
showNotification('Sample Notification', options);
});
});
You can handle notification clicks to perform actions when the user clicks on a notification.
self.addEventListener('notificationclick', function(event) {
event.notification.close();
event.waitUntil(
clients.openWindow('https://yourwebsite.com')
);
});
To subscribe users to push notifications, send the FCM token to your server and save it.
function subscribeUserToPush(currentToken) {
$.ajax({
url: '/subscribe',
method: 'POST',
contentType: 'application/json',
data: JSON.stringify({ token: currentToken }),
success: function(response) {
console.log('User subscribed to push notifications:', response);
},
error: function(error) {
console.log('Error subscribing user to push notifications:', error);
}
});
}
messaging.getToken({ vapidKey: 'YOUR_VAPID_KEY' }).then((currentToken) => {
if (currentToken) {
subscribeUserToPush(currentToken);
} else {
console.log('No registration token available. Request permission to generate one.');
}
}).catch((err) => {
console.log('An error occurred while retrieving token. ', err);
});
In this chapter, we explored how to implement push notifications in a web application using jQuery. Happy coding !❤️