Push notifications with Parse.com

Parse.com provides a set of handy tools to rapidly build mobile applications that needs back-end. One of the main provided features is the push notifications that enables asynchronous and real-time communiation. This post illustrates how to set up the push mechnism in an Android application.

• First, we need to create an Account at Parse.com and register an application to have an application key and client key
• Second, in the application settings wen have to enable push notifications
• Then, download the latestes Parse SDK, i.e. the parse.jar
• Finally, code time

In the manifest, we need to add the following lines to ask permessions

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED" /> 
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.VIBRATE" />

Then, before the </application> register a broadcast receiver

<receiver android:name=".PushReceiver">
   <intent-filter>  
 <action android:name="com.telethonix.NOTIFICATION"> </action>
   </intent-filter>
</receiver>

Then create the PushReceiver class as follow:

public class PushReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
   public final static String TAG = PushReceiver.class.getSimpleName(); 
   @Override
   public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {     
      try {
 Bundle extras = intent.getExtras();        
 String message = extras != null ? extras.getString("com.parse.Data") : "";    
 Log.i(TAG, "Received message: "+message);
       // do something with the received data
      } catch (JSONException e) {
 e.printStackTrace();
      }  
   }
}

Finnaly in the main activity, we should initiate parse with the application keys, and send a notification

String app_id     = "your application key";
String client_key = "your client key";
Parse.initialize(this, app_id, client_key);
// subscribe to be notified
PushService.subscribe(MainActivity.this, "channel", MainActivity.class);
// push a message
ParsePush push = new ParsePush(); push.setChannel("channel");
push.setData(data);
push.sendInBackground(new SendCallback(){   
   @Override
   public void done(ParseException arg0){
      Log.i(TAG, "push sent done!");
   }
});

More details at Push Developer Guide.