Push notifications in native Windows Phone 8 applications

Overview

IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation provides a unified set of API methods to send, or push, notifications to devices where the MobileFirst application is installed. It is possible to send a notification in 3 distinct types: event source notification, broadcast notification, and tag notification.

This tutorial explains the concept, API, and usage of push notifications in the context of Native Windows Phone 8 applications.
To create and configure a Windows Phone 8 native project, first follow these tutorials:

• Creating your first Native Windows Phone 8 MobileFirst application
• Invoking adapter procedures from native Windows Phone 8 applications

The following topics are covered:

• Notification types
• Setting up the project

Notification types

Even source notification

Event source notification sends notification messages that are targeted to devices with a user subscription.

Broadcast notification

Broadcast notification sends notification messages that are targeted to all subscribed devices.

Tag-based notification

Tag-based notification sends notification messages that are targeted to all the devices that are subscribed to a particular tag.

For more information, select a notification type.

Setting up the project

1. Create a MobileFirst project.

   Add a MobileFirst Windows Phone 8 native API. The native API project provides the files that are necessary to build a Windows Phone 8 app.

2. Edit the application-descriptor.xml file.

   Add the "pushSender" tag to the application-descriptor.xml file.

   <nativeWindowsPhone8App id="WindowsPhone8NativePush" platformVersion="6.3.0.00.20141111-0731" version="1.0" xmlns="http://www.worklight.com/native-windowsphone8-descriptor" securityTest="MySecurityTest">
       <displayName>WindowsPhone8NativePush</displayName>
       <description>WindowsPhone8NativePush</description>
       <pushSender></pushSender></p>
   </nativeWindowsPhone8App>

3. Edit the wlclient.properties file.

   Edit the wlclient.properties file in your native Windows Phone 8 project and enter appropriate values for the following fields:

   • wlServerHost - The host name or IP address of the MobileFirst Server instance.
   • wlServerPort - The port on which MobileFirst Server is listening.
   • wlServerContext - The context root of your MobileFirst Server instance.

   

4. Modify the native Windows Phone 8 project.

   Edit the Properties\WMAppManifest.xml file and add the following capabilities:
   

   <Capability Name="ID_CAP_PUSH_NOTIFICATION" />
   <Capability Name="ID_CAP_IDENTITY_DEVICE" />

Select a notification type

• Broadcast notifications in native Windows Phone 8 applications
• Event source-based notifications in native Phone Windows 8 applications
• Tag-based notifications in native Windows Phone 8 applications