Handle Push Notifications in React

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Notifications are an essential part of a good user experience. You can update your users about your product and offers using notifications properly.

Today we will see how we can receive notifications in our ReactJS web application. I assume you already have a basic react application to follow along. We will use firebase for the notification part.

Step 1. Install Firebase

You should install the required dependencies

yarn add firebase

Now go to your firebase console -> create a project -> grab your firebase project configuration details. You can learn more from here

Step 2. Add Service Worker to Project

To receive notification we need to have a service worker in our application.

A service worker is a script that your browser runs in the background, separate from a web page, opening the door to features that don't need a web page or user interaction.

As we want to receive a notification without any user interaction we need to have a Service Worker. To create one . . .

Go inside your public folder (the folder with index.html file in it)
Create a new file named firebase-messaging-sw.js
Add the following code and replace the value of the config object with your configuration values

importScripts('https://www.gstatic.com/firebasejs/7.14.2/firebase-app.js')
importScripts('https://www.gstatic.com/firebasejs/7.14.2/firebase-messaging.js')

const config = {
  apiKey: "API_KEY",
  authDomain: "PROJECT_ID.firebaseapp.com",
  databaseURL: "https://PROJECT_ID.firebaseio.com",
  projectId: "PROJECT_ID",
  storageBucket: "PROJECT_ID.appspot.com",
  messagingSenderId: "SENDER_ID",
  appId: "APP_ID",
  measurementId: "G-MEASUREMENT_ID"
}

firebase.initializeApp(config)
const messaging = firebase.messaging()

// IF WE WANT TO HANDLE BACKGROUND NOTIFICATION WE HAVE TO ADD THE FOLLOWING BLOCK OF CODE AS WELL

messaging.setBackgroundMessageHandler(function (payload) {

    console.log('[firebase-messaging-sw.js] Received background message ', payload)

    const notificationTitle = payload.data.title
    const notificationOptions = {
        body: payload.data.body,
        icon: '/firebase-logo.png'
    }

    return self.registration.showNotification(notificationTitle, notificationOptions)
})

self.addEventListener('notificationclick', (event) => {
    console.log(event)
    return event
})

Step 3. Register Service Worker

Inside App.js ( or any other component/hook) add the following code right before rendering the application. It will register the service worker to Handle Background Notification.

export default function App () {

    if ('serviceWorker' in navigator) {
        navigator.serviceWorker
            .register('firebase-messaging-sw.js')
            .then(function(registration) {
                console.log('[SW]: SCOPE: ', registration.scope);
                return registration.scope;
            })
            .catch(function(err) {
                return err;
            });
    }

    return <div> </div>
}

After running the application you can go to your dev tools from the browser and under application > Service Workers to see if the service worker is activated or not.

Step 4. Add Utility Functions

Now we are ready to receive notification in the browser. But we need 2more things.

Permission from the user if he wants to view notification or not
Device token to identify our device (we have to save it somewhere)

Now inside your App.js file add the following code to get the user permission and device token

import React from 'react';
import firebase from 'firebase';

export default function App () {

  /// ... registration of service worker


  useEffect(() => {
    firebase        
    .messaging()        
    .requestPermission()        
    .then(() => firebase.messaging().getToken())
    .then((deviceToken) => {
      console.log(deviceToken)      // save this token somewhere   
    })        
    .catch((err) => {console.log(err)})
  },[])


  return <div> App </div>

}

But if you like to keep your code clean you can create a custom hook with all the necessary logic for notification named useFirebaseNotification.js which will be something like this . . .

import firebase from 'firebase'
export const useFirebaseNotificationProvider = () => {
    if ('serviceWorker' in navigator) {
        navigator.serviceWorker
            .register('./firebase-messaging-sw.js')
            .then(function (registration) {
                console.log('Registration successful, scope is:', registration.scope)
            })
            .catch(function (err) {
                console.log('Service worker registration failed, error:', err)
            })
    }

    firebase
        .messaging()
        .requestPermission()
        .then(() => firebase.messaging().getToken())
        .then((firebaseToken) => {
            console.log(firebaseToken)
        })
        .catch((err) => {
            console.log(err)
        })

    firebase.messaging().onMessage((payload) => {
        console.log('payload is ', payload)
    })
}

This hook will register your service worker and ask for permission and get the device token for you.

call this hook from your App.js

export default function App () {
  useFirebaseNotification()
  return <div> App </div>
}

Much cleaner right?

Step 5. Send Notification from Backend

We are all set for receiving notifications in our frontend. We will get a notification whether our app is in the foreground or not.

If you have a backend application form where you can handle notifications you can grab the device token from earlier and send a notification.

Or you can send notifications from your firebase console also.

From your backend (Which should also be connected to firebase but out of scope for this tutorial ) you can use the following code to send notifications. from NodeJS

import admin from 'firebase-admin';

const payload = {
    title: 'title',
    body: 'body',
    data: {
        title: 'title',
        body: 'body'
    },
    tokens: [DEVICE_TOKEN]
};

function sendNotificaiton() {
  admin
    .messaging()
    .sendMulticast(payloadWeb)
    .then(response => {
        console.log(response.responses);
    });
}

sendNotificaiton();

Hopefully, you can see the notification in your browser. You can do all kinds of custom stuff after receiving the notification now.

That’s it for today. I hope you have found this helpful. Have a great day!

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Handle Push Notifications in React

Mohammad Faisal

Step 1. Install Firebase

Step 2. Add Service Worker to Project

Step 3. Register Service Worker

Step 4. Add Utility Functions

Step 5. Send Notification from Backend

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