Notification channel

There are two different views when rendering notification channels: Feed and Chat. Feed view shows all notifications in a list form while Chat view shows notifications in the form of a user-to-user group channel.

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The following table lists the difference between Feed view and Chat view.

The following items are key elements of SBUFeedNotificationChannelViewController that are used to create a Feed view of the notification channel.

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You can start building a new Feed view through the SBUFeedNotificationChannelViewController class by following the code below. Once the view is created, display the channel anywhere you want in your app. The channel URL of the feed notification channel can be found on Sendbird Dashboard under Notifications > Channels.

let feedChannelViewController = SBUViewControllerSet.FeedNotificationChannelViewController.init(
    channelURL: "FEED_NOTIFICATION_CHANNEL_URL"
)

If you already have an exisiting FeedNotificationChannelViewController, you need to update channel information before displaying the Feed view.

let feedChannelViewController = <YOUR_FEED_CHANNEL_VIEWCONTROLLER>
feedChannelViewController.reloadChannel(
    channelURL: "FEED_NOTIFICATION_CHANNEL_URL"
)

In the SBUFeedNotificationChannelViewController class, SBUFeedNotificationChannelModule and its components are used to display the Feed view. The module is composed of two components: headerComponent and listComponent.

The headerComponent shows the title of the notification channel.

The listComponent shows a list of all notifications sent to the user.

A green badge appears above the notification bubble when the current user receives a new notification in the Feed view. This badge is displayed based on the Feed's last read time value at the time of view creation. However, this time value remains the same while the Feed view is in the foreground, which prevents the badge from disappearing even if the user's already seen the notification. If you want to update the last read time value, see the code below. You can also call the updateLastSeenAt(_:) method in SBUFeedNotificationChannelViewModel instead.

// Feed notification channel view controller
feedChannelViewController.updateLastSeenAt()

If you've authenticated to the Sendbird server by calling SendbirdUI.authenticateFeed(completionHandler:), there's no WebSocket connection between the UIKit and the Sendbird server. Due to the lack of connection, the UIKit can't receive real-time events to notify the user with updated information about the feed channel.

The UIKit will automatically refresh the notification collections when the client app is brought to foreground or when the device's network connection has changed. In the case that the collection information is received as a push notification from the client app, you can refresh the content of all valid notification collections.

Note: NotificationCollection is valid only if the isLive flag is set to true.

SendbirdChat.refreshNotificationCollections()
// The content of the notification collection has been refreshed.

The following items are key elements of SBUChatNotificationChannelViewController that are used to create a Chat view of the notification channel.

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Before creating the Chat view, implement the code below if you're already using a channel view in your app with standard modal and navigation. The channel URL of the chat notification channel can be found on Sendbird Dashboard under Notifications > Channels.

SendbirdUI.moveToChannel(
    channelURL: "CHAT_NOTIFICATION_CHANNEL_URL",
    basedOnChannelList: true
)

If you're currently using Chat UIKit for iOS features with a specific root view controller, implement the code below.

SendbirdUI.moveToChannel(
    channelURL: "CHAT_NOTIFICATION_CHANNEL_URL",
    basedOnChannelList: true,
    rootViewController: <YOUR_ROOT_VIEWCONTROLLER>
)

If you're using the channel view differently in your app than the cases mentioned above, then you need to find the existing ChatChannelViewController object and display the view in your app. You need to also update channel information before displaying the Chat view if you already have an exisiting ChatNotificationChannelViewController,

let chatChannelViewController = <YOUR_CHAT_CHANNEL_VIEWCONTROLLER>
chatChannelViewController.reloadChannel(
    channelURL: "CHAT_NOTIFICATION_CHANNEL_URL"
)

In the SBUChatNotificationChannelViewController class, SBUChatNotificationChannelModule and its components are used to display the Chat view. The module is composed of two components: headerComponent and listComponent.

The headerComponent shows the channel title, channel image, and a back button that takes the user to the previous view.

The listComponent shows a list of all notifications.