docs/html/training/wearables/notifications/creating.jd

page.title=Creating a Notification

@jd:body

<div id="tb-wrapper">
<div id="tb">

<h2>This lesson teaches you to</h2>
<ol>
  <li><a href="#Import">Import the Necessary Classes</a></li>
  <li><a href="#NotificationBuilder">Create Notifications with the Notification Builder</a></li>
  <li><a href="#ActionButtons">Add Action Buttons</a></li>
  <li><a href="#SpecifyWearableOnlyActions">Specify Wearable-only Actions</a></li>
  <li><a href="#BigView">Add a Big View</a></li>
  <li><a href="#AddWearableFeatures">Add Wearable Features for a Notification</a></li>
  <li><a href="#Deliver">Deliver the Notification</a></li>
</ol>

</div>
</div>

<p>To build handheld notifications that are also sent to wearables, use
{@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder}. When you build
notifications with this class, the system takes care of displaying
notifications properly, whether they appear on a handheld or wearable.
</p>

<p class="note"><strong>Note:</strong>
Notifications using {@link android.widget.RemoteViews} are stripped of custom
layouts and the wearable only displays the text and icons. However, you can create
<a href="{@docRoot}training/wearables/apps/layouts.html#CustomNotifications">create custom notifications</a>
that use custom card layouts by creating a wearable app that runs on the wearable device.</p>
</div>

<h2 id="Import">Import the necessary classes</h2>

<p>To import the necessary packages, add this line to your <code>build.gradle</code>file:</p>

<pre>
compile "com.android.support:support-v4:20.0.+"
</pre>

<p>Now that your project has access to the necessary packages, import the necessary classes from
the support library:</p>

<pre style="clear:right">
import android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat;
import android.support.v4.app.NotificationManagerCompat;
import android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.WearableExtender;
</pre>

<h2 id="NotificationBuilder">Create Notifications with the Notification Builder</h2>

<p>The <a href="http://developer.android.com/tools/support-library/features.html#v4">v4
support library</a> allows you to create notifications using the latest notification features
such as action buttons and large icons, while remaining compatible with Android 1.6 (API level
4) and higher.</p>

<p>To create a notification with the support library, you create an instance of
{@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder} and issue the notification by
passing it to {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationManagerCompat#notify notify()}. For example:
</p>

<pre>
int notificationId = 001;
// Build intent for notification content
Intent viewIntent = new Intent(this, ViewEventActivity.class);
viewIntent.putExtra(EXTRA_EVENT_ID, eventId);
PendingIntent viewPendingIntent =
        PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0, viewIntent, 0);

NotificationCompat.Builder notificationBuilder =
        new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)
        .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_event)
        .setContentTitle(eventTitle)
        .setContentText(eventLocation)
        .setContentIntent(viewPendingIntent);

// Get an instance of the NotificationManager service
NotificationManagerCompat notificationManager =
        NotificationManagerCompat.from(this);

// Build the notification and issues it with notification manager.
notificationManager.notify(notificationId, notificationBuilder.build());
</pre>

<p>When this notification appears on a handheld device, the user can invoke the
{@link android.app.PendingIntent}
specified by the {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder#setContentIntent
setContentIntent()} method by touching the notification. When this
notification appears on an Android wearable, the user can swipe the notification to the left to
reveal the <strong>Open</strong> action, which invokes the intent on the handheld device.</p>


<img src="{@docRoot}wear/images/circle_email_action.png" height="200"
  style="float:right;clear:right;margin:0 0 20px 60px" />

<h2 id="ActionButtons">Add Action Buttons</h2>

<p>In addition to the primary content action defined by
{@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder#setContentIntent
setContentIntent()}, you can add other actions by passing a {@link android.app.PendingIntent} to
the {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder#addAction addAction()} method.</p>

<p>For example, the following code shows the same type of notification from above, but adds an
action to view the event location on a map.</p>

<pre style="clear:right">
// Build an intent for an action to view a map
Intent mapIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
Uri geoUri = Uri.parse("geo:0,0?q=" + Uri.encode(location));
mapIntent.setData(geoUri);
PendingIntent mapPendingIntent =
        PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0, mapIntent, 0);

NotificationCompat.Builder notificationBuilder =
        new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)
        .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_event)
        .setContentTitle(eventTitle)
        .setContentText(eventLocation)
        .setContentIntent(viewPendingIntent)
        <b>.addAction(R.drawable.ic_map,
                getString(R.string.map), mapPendingIntent);</b>
</pre>

<p>On a handheld, the action appears as an
additional button attached to the notification. On a wearable, the action appears as
a large button when the user swipes the notification to the left. When the user taps the action,
the associated intent is invoked on the handheld.</p>

<p class="note"><strong>Tip:</strong> If your notifications include a "Reply" action
  (such as for a messaging app), you can enhance the behavior by enabling
  voice input replies directly from the Android wearable. For more information, read
  <a href="{@docRoot}training/wearables/notifications/voice-input.html">Receiving Voice Input from
  a Notification</a>.
</p>

<h2 id="SpecifyWearableOnlyActions">Specify Wearable-only Actions</h2>

<p>
If you want the actions available on the wearable to be different from those on the handheld,
then use {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.WearableExtender#addAction WearableExtender.addAction()}.
Once you add an action with this method, the wearable does not display any other actions added with
{@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder#addAction NotificationCompat.Builder.addAction()}.
That is, only the actions added with {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.WearableExtender#addAction WearableExtender.addAction()} appear on the wearable and they do not appear on the handheld.
</p>

<pre>
// Create an intent for the reply action
Intent actionIntent = new Intent(this, ActionActivity.class);
PendingIntent actionPendingIntent =
        PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0, actionIntent,
                PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);

// Create the action
NotificationCompat.Action action =
        new NotificationCompat.Action.Builder(R.drawable.ic_action,
                getString(R.string.label, actionPendingIntent))
                .build();

// Build the notification and add the action via WearableExtender
Notification notification =
        new NotificationCompat.Builder(mContext)
                .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_message)
                .setContentTitle(getString(R.string.title))
                .setContentText(getString(R.string.content))
                .extend(new WearableExtender().addAction(action))
                .build();
</pre>
<h2 id="BigView">Add a Big View</h2>

<img src="{@docRoot}wear/images/06_images.png" height="200"
  style="float:right;margin:0 0 20px 40px" />

<p>You can insert extended text content
to your notification by adding one of the "big view" styles to your notification. On a
handheld device, users can see the big view content by expanding the notification. On
a wearable device, the big view content is visible by default.</p>

<p>To add the extended content to your notification, call {@link
android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder#setStyle setStyle()} on the {@link
android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder} object, passing it an instance of either
{@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.BigTextStyle BigTextStyle} or
{@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.InboxStyle InboxStyle}.</p>

<p>For example, the following code adds an instance of
{@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.BigTextStyle} to the event notification,
in order to include the complete event description (which includes more text than can fit
into the space provided for {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder#setContentText
setContentText()}).</p>

<pre style="clear:right">
// Specify the 'big view' content to display the long
// event description that may not fit the normal content text.
BigTextStyle bigStyle = new NotificationCompat.BigTextStyle();
bigStyle.bigText(eventDescription);

NotificationCompat.Builder notificationBuilder =
        new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)
        .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_event)
        .setLargeIcon(BitmapFactory.decodeResource(
                getResources(), R.drawable.notif_background))
        .setContentTitle(eventTitle)
        .setContentText(eventLocation)
        .setContentIntent(viewPendingIntent)
        .addAction(R.drawable.ic_map,
                getString(R.string.map), mapPendingIntent)
        <b>.setStyle(bigStyle);</b>
</pre>

<p>Notice that you can add a large background image to any notification using the
{@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder#setLargeIcon setLargeIcon()}
method. For more information about designing notifications with large images, see the
<a href="{@docRoot}design/wear/index.html">Design Principles of Android
Wear</a>.</p>

<h2 id="AddWearableFeatures">Add Wearable Features For a Notification</h2>

<p>If you ever need to add wearable-specific options to a notification, such as specifying additional
pages of content or letting users dictate a text response with voice input, you can use the
{@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.WearableExtender} class to
specify the options. To use this API:</p>

<ol>
  <li>Create an instance of a {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.WearableExtender WearableExtender},
  setting the wearable-specific options for the notication.</li>
  <li>Create an instance of
  {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder}, setting the
  desired properties for your notification as described earlier in this lesson.</li>
  <li>Call {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder#extend extend()} on
  the notification and pass in the
  {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.WearableExtender WearableExtender}. This applies
  the wearable options to the notification.</li>
  <li>Call {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder#build} to build the notification.</li>
</ol>

<p>
For example, the following code calls the
{@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.WearableExtender#setHintHideIcon setHintHideIcon()}
method to remove the app icon from the notification card.
</p>

<pre>
// Create a WearableExtender to add functionality for wearables
NotificationCompat.WearableExtender wearableExtender =
        new NotificationCompat.WearableExtender()
        .setHintHideIcon(true);

// Create a NotificationCompat.Builder to build a standard notification
// then extend it with the WearableExtender
Notification notif = new NotificationCompat.Builder(mContext)
        .setContentTitle("New mail from " + sender)
        .setContentText(subject)
        .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.new_mail);
        .extend(wearableExtender)
        .build();
</pre>

<p>The
  {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.WearableExtender#setHintHideIcon setHintHideIcon()}
  method is just one example of new notification features available with
  {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.WearableExtender}.
</p>

<p>If you ever need to read wearable-specifc options at a later time, use the corresponding get
method for the option. This example calls the
{@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.WearableExtender#getHintHideIcon()} method to
get whether or not this notification hides the icon:
<pre>
NotificationCompat.WearableExtender wearableExtender =
        new NotificationCompat.WearableExtender(notif);
boolean hintHideIcon = wearableExtender.getHintHideIcon();
</pre>

<h2 id="Deliver">Deliver the Notification</h2>
<p>When you want to deliver your notifications, always use the
  {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationManagerCompat} API instead of
  {@link android.app.NotificationManager}:</p>

<pre>
// Get an instance of the NotificationManager service
NotificationManagerCompat notificationManager =
        NotificationManagerCompat.from(mContext);

// Issue the notification with notification manager.
notificationManager.notify(notificationId, notif);
</pre>

<p>If you use the framework's {@link android.app.NotificationManager}, some
features from {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.WearableExtender}
do not work, so make sure to use {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat}.
</p>

<pre>
NotificationCompat.WearableExtender wearableExtender =
        new NotificationCompat.WearableExtender(notif);
boolean hintHideIcon = wearableExtender.getHintHideIcon();
 </pre>

<p>The {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.WearableExtender} APIs allow you to add
additional pages to notifications, stack notifications, and more. Continue to the following lessons
to learn about these features.
</p>