Here's my scenario. As part of my app when someone is sent a message it sends an alert to the phone. If they click on the alert I want to open up the specific message they were alerted to. I have a view message controller that will show the specific message. Here are my questions:
What is the best way to handle a notification while the app is open? I get the alert in the appDelegate, should I show an alert box that's triggered from there and open the correct controller if they choose to view it? This seems like code that doesn't belong in the appDelegate, but I don't know how that would otherwise happen.
For the login, this is a very similar question. When they are logged in it logs them into the server, and they stay logged in for a period of time. When the app loads I want to fire off a check on the server to see if their login has timed out. If it has I want to push them to the login screen of the app. Would this also happen in the app delegate?
My third question is how to best handle getting the phone id. I have the method set up in my app delegate where I get the ID when they accept the push notifications. My plan is to check and see if they are logged in, and if they are check to see if I already have their id saved to the server. If not send it up to save. Is that the best way to do this?
Yes, you would want to show a notification (UIAlertView is perfect for this), so the app doesn't suddenly change views, or jump around when a notification comes in. You'll want the user to be in control of whether they want to view the content related to the notification, just like they can choose to ignore notifications from apps anyway.
Yes, or switch the view to whatever view controller handled the login (you could do this modally). Be sure to let the user know why they're seeing the login view: "Login is required to view [NOTIFICATION]" or something like that. But it depends on the rest of the flow of your app.*
Not entirely sure which ID you're referring to? You might want to store a unique token in the app which you communicate to your server. This token is generated on the first login, for example which enables you to match up the user's login with the token. A UUID
might work, or you can roll your own.
*A note on your auto-logout, why do you have this? Most apps stay logged in at all times, and let's the user control when they want to logout (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. - unless it's a banking app or PayPal). Alternatively, you can let the user add a custom four-digit login code like the Dropbox app for example.