Push Notification using Parse JS SDK and Phonegap

In Parse documentation it says push notification can only be sent using the native sdk’s or cloud code, well, for people using Phonegap, and using the parse javascript sdk that just wont do.

So avivais made a plugin to do just that, you can find it here in github.

It’s really simple to use, you install the plugin, you can find out more about adding plugins in phonegap here, and what the plugin does is it gives you the installation id, basically all you need to start working with push notifications in parse.

First, you initialize the plugin:

 window.parsePlugin.initialize(PARSE_APP_KEY, PARSE_REST_KEY, function() {
        console.log('success');           
    }, function(e) {        
        console.log("Error: " + e.code + " : " + e.message);
    });    

After that, you get the installation ID (in my case I’m saving the id in a var called installationID as you can see:

 window.parsePlugin.getInstallationId(function(id) {
        installationID = id;        
                    
    }, function(e) {
        console.log("Error Getting ID: " + e.code + " : " + e.message);
    });

Now that we have the installation id, you can subscribe to channels, unsubscribe to channels or get the subscriptions of your user using the plugin, it’s all in the Readme file of the plugin.

The plugin uses Parse’s Rest API, but after you have all that, you can just use Parse Javascript SDK to send push notifications like this:

  
Parse.Push.send({
   channels : ["yourChannel" ],
                                         
   data: {
            alert: msgToSend,                            
         }
  }, {
  success: function() {
       console.log("Success PUSH SENT: " + response);   
   },
      error: function(error) {
        console.log("Error: " + error.message);    
     }
 });

Notes:
1. I’ve only used this plugin in Android, it has the ios feature, but havent tested it yet.

2. There is a bug in the android parse sdk, in which to use the Advanced Targetting push notifications, you will need to create your own android activity to receive the push notication, so unless you want to modify the plugin to do that, you should use only channels.

3. A little tip to use only channels, even if you want to target just one user, when you sign up a new user, subscribe him in his own channel, but do not forget, very important, channel names always need to start with a letter, never a number or another character, so what I did was to subscribe appending “user_” to the front of the username:

  
parsePlugin.subscribe("user_" + username, function() {    
        console.log("Sucess Subscribing: " + username);
     }, function(e) {
       console.log("Error Subscribing: " + e.code + " : " + e.message);
  });

So for example a user that signs up with “12345” username will be subscribe to the “user_12345” channel, and since my usernames are always unique, the push notification will be sent to just that user.

Examples of queries and how to use the Javascript SDK to send pushes to certain channels, you can find it in the Parse Docs, it’s well explained there.

That’s it, it is that simple, so start sending push notification in your phonegap apps, if you have any trouble or need any help, just leave a comment here.

Happy coding