Working with Push Notifications in Flutter

Working with Push Notifications in Flutter

Push notifications are a great way to keep users engaged and informed with your app. With the release of Flutter, it has become even easier to work with push notifications. In this post, we’ll take a look at how you can set up push notifications in your Flutter apps.

Setting Up Firebase Cloud Messaging

The first step in setting up push notifications is to configure Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM). FCM is a cloud-based service from Google that helps you manage your push notifications. To set up FCM, you need to create an account with Firebase and link it to your app. You can do this by following the steps outlined in the Firebase documentation.

Adding Dependencies to Your Project

Once your Firebase account is set up, you’ll need to add some dependencies to your project. This can be done by adding the following line to your pubspec.yaml file:

dependencies:
    firebase_messaging: ^5.0.0

This will add the necessary libraries to your project for working with FCM.

Creating a Push Notification Listener

Once the dependencies have been added, you’ll need to create a listener for push notifications. This listener will listen for incoming push notifications and execute your code when it receives one. To do this, you’ll need to use the FirebaseMessaging class. Add the following code to your main.dart file:

FirebaseMessaging _firebaseMessaging = FirebaseMessaging();

_firebaseMessaging.configure(
  onMessage: (Map<String, dynamic> message) async {
    print("onMessage: $message");
    // Do something with the message
  },
  onLaunch: (Map<String, dynamic> message) async {
    print("onLaunch: $message");
    // Do something with the message
  },
  onResume: (Map<String, dynamic> message) async {
    print("onResume: $message");
    // Do something with the message
  },
);

This code will create a FirebaseMessaging instance and configure it to listen for incoming push notifications. You can then configure the onMessage, onLaunch, and onResume callbacks to execute your code when the corresponding push notification is received.

Sending Push Notifications

Now that you’ve set up your push notification listener, you’re ready to send push notifications. You can do this using the Firebase Console or by making a request to the Firebase API. Whichever method you choose, make sure to include the fcm_token parameter with the device token of the user you’re sending the notification to. This will ensure that the push notification is delivered to the correct device.

Conclusion

In this post, we’ve taken a look at how you can set up push notifications in Flutter apps. We’ve seen how to set up Firebase Cloud Messaging and add dependencies to your project, as well as how to create a push notification listener and send push notifications. With these steps, you’ll be ready to start building better user experiences with push notifications in your Flutter apps!