Uncovering the Bubbles API
Back in 2019, Google announced in I/O 2019 a new “extension” for the notifications that would replace and deprecate the SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOWAPI.
Bubbles were created to provide the user a simple and easy way to participate in conversations.
Built directly into the Notification system, they float on top of other app content and could be easily expanded/collapsed so the user could access app functionalities and information from anywhere.
Although it was available in the Android Q betas in final version Google decided that Bubbles wouldn’t be a user-facing feature in Android Q, instead being in the developer options.
But there are good news, the new Android 11 finally brought the final version of Bubbles API!
In order to prevent some kind of bubble flooding by the apps and keep interrupting the user, bubbles only appear under certain circumstances.
If your app targets Android 11 or higher, bubble notifications only appear if it meets the conversation requirements:
- Notification uses
MessagingStyle; - The notification is associated with a valid long-lived dynamic or cached sharing shortcut;
- The user hasn’t demoted the conversation from the conversation section via notification channel settings, at the time of posting.
In case your app targets Android 10, the notification bubble only appears if one or more of these conditions are met:
- Notification uses
MessagingStyle, and has aPersonadded; - Notification is from a call to
Service.startForeground, has a category ofCATEGORY_CALL, and has aPersonadded; - App is in the foreground when the notification is sent.
In case none of those conditions are met, the notification is shown instead of a bubble.
Before we get started if you want to enable Bubbles in Android 10 you need to go to the developer settings and enable the option Bubbles .
Let’s get started! 🏁
1. Update your build.gradle
Make sure your application is targeting Android 11 (API Level 30) and also change the compileSDKVersion .
android {
compileSdkVersion 30
buildToolsVersion "30.0.2"
defaultConfig {
targetSdkVersion 30
}
}2. Create an Activity for the Bubble
The bubble expanded view of a Bubble is created from an Activity and needs to be configured to display properly as a bubble. This activity should be resizeableActivityand embedded . If any of these requirements is missing it a notification will be display instead.
<activity
android:name=".BubbleActivity"
android:allowEmbedded="true"
android:documentLaunchMode="always"
android:resizeableActivity="true" />We need to set the attribute documentLaunchMode="always" explicitly otherwise on devices running Android 10 notifications won’t be shown as bubbles. In Android 11 it is no longer necessary because the system automatically sets all conversations' documentLaunchMode to "always".
3. Create a notification
In order to ‘create’ a Bubble you need to :
- Create regular a notification like you normally do:
val builder = Notification.Builder(context, CHANNEL_BUBBLE_ID)- Then create a
BubbleMetaDataobject with aPersonobject and also aShortcutInfoobject that is going to be associated to the bubble:
//create the intent for the bubbleval target = Intent(context, BubbleActivity::class.java)
val bubbleIntent =
PendingIntent.getActivity(context, 0, target, PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT)//create bubble metadata val icon = Icon.createWithResource(context, R.drawable.icon)
val bubbleMetada = Notification.BubbleMetadata.Builder(bubbleIntent, icon)
.setDesiredHeightResId(R.dimen.bubble_height)
.build()//create the person information
val person = Person.Builder()
.setName("John Doe")
.setIcon(icon)
.setImportant(true)
.build()//Create a dynamic shortcut associated to the bubble
val shortcut = ShortcutInfo.Builder(context, "shortcutid")
.setLongLived(true)
.setIntent(
Intent(context, MainActivity::class.java)
)
.setShortLabel("John Doe Conversation")
.setIcon(icon)
.setPerson(person)
.build()// publish the new shortcut
shortcutManager.pushDynamicShortcut(shortcut)
- Finally, set
BubbleMetadataobject in the notification, using the methodsetBubbleMetadata:
//set the bubble meta, messaging style, person and
//shortcut in the notification builderwith(builder) {
setBubbleMetadata(bubbleData)
style = Notification.MessagingStyle(person).addMessage(
Notification.MessagingStyle.Message(
simpleMessage.text,
System.currentTimeMillis(),
person
)
)
setShortcutId(shortcut.id)
addPerson(person)
}
- Set the normally values for a regular notification into the builder, since the user can turn off the bubbles in the system settings and when that happens a normal notification will be shown instead of a bubble:
with(builder) {
setContentTitle("New message")
setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_stat_notification)
setCategory(Notification.CATEGORY_MESSAGE)
setContentIntent(
PendingIntent.getActivity(
context,
0,
Intent(context, MainActivity::class.java),
PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT
)
)
setShowWhen(true)
}//then just call the notification manager to send it
notificationManager.notify(MY_NOTIFICATION, builder.build())
Note: The first time you send the notification to display a bubble, the notification channel should have the importance set with IMPORTANCE_MIN or higher.
In case your app is in the foreground, the importance is ignored and your bubble will always be shown (unless the user has blocked bubbles/notifications).
Result
If you would like to see more details, check out the GitHub repo:
