Notification show Block (Bug and feature request)

[David Spadano]

Hi Henrik,

Bug: 

Since the introduction of "Channel" in the Notification block, the Flash attention light doesn't work anymore

I tried on a LG-G2, Samsung Galagy S7, Huawei P20, with the 1.10.7 version of Automate and it was working.

Feature request:

I have also a small request about the notification show Block: Is it possible to bring back the old way to configure it ? Like it was before the introduction of "Channel".

I have flows that change the behavior of the notification with current value of variables like "Vibrate" On/Off or show "Flash attention light".

With the "Channel" way, I have to create one "Channel" for each cases and it can be exponentially and painful to do this.

I like the way that Channel works but for some cases, the old way was more flexible...

So, it would be good to have the possibility to choose between both ways in the configuration of the Block.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

[Henrik "The Developer" Lindqvist]

I'll investigate if there's any way to get the Attention light block working again.

The "old way" is sadly not possible any long. Apps are forced to target Android 8, where "notification channels" is an requirement.

[David Spadano]

Hi Henrik,

Do you have any news about the attention light not working using notification channel ?

When I looked at the Android documentation I saw that configuring the color of the light via the setLightColor method is not enough.

Is it possible that the fix could be as simple as calling the enableLights method ???

Also I wanted to come back with a small new feature request to bring back quite the same Old Way of using notification :-) 

I know that with the new Channel Notification way, the app can't bring modification to the notification after its creation.

My idea is to add 2 new blocks:

- "Notification Create"

- "Notification Delete"

- The "Notification Create" would have all the configurations possible to create a notification (quite like before): light, light color, sound, tune, vibrate, etc...

and will return in "Output variables" the "Notification Id" 

- The "Notification Delete" would simply delete the notification channel using the "Notification Id" provided by the "Notification Create"

This way, we can provide the "Notification Id" to all the existing block using a notification.

So the way I wanted to use it is:

- "Notification Create" (with all my dynamic values of vibrate, light and others)

- "Notification Show" (using the Notification Id provided by the previous block)

- "Notification Delete" (to remove the notification and clean the notifications list)

So the user will not have to modify this Notification through the system page (like I have to do every time I need)

Thanks these 2 new blocks, we can bring back the Old Way of using the Notification ;-)

I hope that it will be possible for you to include this Request Feature in the ToDo list.

Thanks

Best regards

[Henrik "The Developer" Lindqvist]

Light color can only be set for an entire Notification channel when it's created, not on individual Notifications.

I'm hesitant to allow flows to create Notification channels, since Google seems to not like apps doing so repeatedly as workaround, i.e. there's/was a counter visible in system Apps & notifications.

[David Spadano]

Light color can only be set for an entire Notification channel when it's created, not on individual Notifications

Yes I know. This is the benefit of the 2 new blocks asked because that makes it possible ;-)

 

I'm hesitant to allow flows to create Notification channels, since Google seems to not like apps doing so repeatedly as workaround, i.e. there's/was a counter visible in system Apps & notifications.

I understand if Google doesn't like this.

But this new system has many cons ... And I think that many Apps use this trick to be more dynamic.

Even Google's System Apps have sometimes more than 50 notification channels which is created time to time and it's not possible to delete it...

These would be great if you decide one day to implement it ;-)