Using Push notifications with titanium appcelerator

Question

I am using Titanium's push notification functionality with alloy for Android and iOS. I am initializing push notification subscription from alloy.js, i.e. basically calling CloudPush's retrieveDeviceToken method to get a device token and then

 Cloud.PushNotifications.subscribe({
    channel : _channel,
    device_token : _token,
    type : OS_IOS ? 'ios' : 'android'
  }, function(_event) {..}

The challenge is that, alloy.js gets called everytime I will restart the app. That means a new device token is generated and channel is subscribed again and again on every restart of app.

I am wondering if this is the right way to use the push subscription. Is there a way to avoid these multiple subscriptions from the same device.

Answer 1

Actually you are doing the right thing, but there is a fact behind Push Notifications:

• You will always get a single device token no matter how many times you call CloudPush.retrieveDeviceToken() method.
• Device Token will only differ when you will uninstall the app and install it again.
• So all you need to do to avoid the subscription to channel multiple times is that Save the device token in Ti.App.Properties and then check for this property whether it has a value or not.

See below code snippet:

var CloudPush = require('ti.cloudpush');

            if ( CloudPush.isGooglePlayServicesAvailable() ) {
                CloudPush.retrieveDeviceToken({
                    success : tokenSuccess,
                    error : tokenError
                });

                // Process incoming push notifications
                CloudPush.addEventListener('callback', pushRecieve);

            } else {
                alert("Please enable Google Play Services to register for notifications.");
            }

// Save the device token for subsequent API calls
function tokenSuccess(e) {
    var previousToken = Ti.App.Properties.getString("DEVICE_TOKEN", "");

    var newToken = "" + e.deviceToken;
    Ti.API.info('** New Device Token = ' + newToken);

    if (newToken !== previousToken) {
        Ti.App.Properties.setString("DEVICE_TOKEN", newToken);  

        var Cloud = require("ti.cloud");

        Cloud.PushNotifications.subscribe({
            channel : _channel,
            device_token : newToken,
            type : OS_IOS ? 'ios' : 'android'
        }, function(_event) {});
    }
}


function tokenError(e) {
    alert('Failed to register for push notifications.');
}