Notifications are here

[jocmp]

The first iteration of notifications is complete and available in the latest build, 2024.10.1060-dev. I’ll push these changes to the Google Play Store later this week as well. I want to give a brief overview of how notifications work in Capy since behaviors compared to other apps like Feeder or ReadYou and user expectations may differ.

Notifications are configurable from Settings under Settings → General → Refresh. The refresh setting controls how frequently feeds are fetched and in turn control how often notifications appear.

The notification item is clickable after accepting the notification permission. From here you can select as many or as few feeds as possible.

Notifications will only count new, unread articles that have arrived since the refresh. Each notification is sent at a feed level, so a notification might say “1 new articles from 9to5Google” if 1 new article has arrived since the last refresh.

On click, the notification will open to the unread filter for the feed. From there you can tap into the article or articles that have arrived.

Battery Optimization

Please note that refresh frequency is still relative based on your device’s vendor and how they handle background refresh. Pixel devices for instance may choose to skip a 15 minute refresh if the app hasn’t been used in a while to conserve battery life. For Android 6+ can be overridden in app settings but is not necessary in my testing.

Visit the Don’t kill my app! site to see how your device vendor stacks up and how they handle background refreshes.

Future Changes

At some point I’d like to add more ways to access notifications from a feed level with a bell icon. For now I want to keep the changes smallish and get your feedback as soon as possible. Try it out, let me know what you think!

[PhilC813]

With the new version "2024.10.1060-dev", I see the new "Refresh Feeds" menu under "General" but none for notifications specifically. I have the notification permission given for the app at the Android level.

[PhilC813]

Here is the "General" section in the app:

The permissions provided to the app:

I get updates with Obtainium linked to the GitHub project.

[PhilC813]

(I can always try a reinstall if you'd like, but I would tend to think that it has something to do with the code)

[jocmp]

Thanks @Philippe-Choquette. I agree that these all point to a code issue though I'm noticing some old spacing above the "Clear all articles" button that was also changed in the latest version. Can you do one more thing and check the version that the app says under Settings > About? Here's what I'm seeing in comparison

General	About

[PhilC813]

I'm decently proficient with tech but sometimes you overlook simple things... Thanks for pointing this out. The app was indeed showing v1059, and so was the "App info" screen in Android settings. I reinstalled the update with Obtainium and I now see the notifications menu in Capy. I'll blame Obtainium for this one 😅

[jocmp]

Yep seems like some wires got crossed with the packaging. I'm glad it finally installed correctly!

[PhilC813]

Based on my first try with one of my feeds, notifications work very well. I like that the layout is kept simple and that tapping them opens the unread filter for the relevant feed; nice touch.

I would expect that some people will want notifications for individual articles however, similar to how it's implemented in services like Inoreader. If you ever venture this far, I believe Android allows notifications to be split into groups, which would allow you to keep the feeds separate; this would be an improvement over the implementation of some other RSS readers.

[PhilC813]

The BigTextStyle does seem like the right option. The padding looks larger on your screenshots that may just be the difference between our Android manufacturer builds. I'll let you know on the next release! Thank you so much!

[PhilC813]

The new notification layout is perfect! It allows you to more easily evaluate articles without having to open the app.

If I could suggest one last thing:
When you open an article from the notification, and tap the back button to access the article list, it shows the feed with the "All" filter when it should ideally be the "Unread" filter instead.

[jocmp]

Sounds good to me. I'll tack this on to the next build.

[PhilC813]

A "Mark as read" button for the notification could be useful too when you know that the article doesn't interest you. Otherwise, when you open the app, you'll see many unread articles on the relevant feed, prompting you to check, only to notice that these are all articles you purposely ignored.

That makes every notification larger when expanded tho, so less "minimalist" if it matters to you.

Next to "Mark as read", you could also add a "Star" button; I think those would be the main useful options. The CNN app notifications have a "Share" button but I think most people would at least open the article before considering sharing with someone, and their "View" button is just redundant.

[jocmp]

I've been thinking the same for a "Mark as read" button at least. Tracking via #462