Apple Push Notification

This plugin helps you use the Apple Push Notification system.

Installing

Install as a gem:

# Add to config/environment.rb:
config.gem "apple_push_notification", :source => "http://gemcutter.org/"

# At command prompt:
$ sudo rake gems:install

or as a plugin:

$ script/plugin install git://github.com/samsoffes/apple_push_notification.git

Once you have installed ApplePushNotification, run the following command:

$ rake apn:migrate

Converting Your Certificate

Once you have the certificate from Apple for your application, export your key and the apple certificate as p12 files. Here's how:

1. Click the disclosure arrow next to your certificate in Keychain Access and select the certificate and the key.
2. Right click and choose Export 2 items....
3. Choose the p12 format from the drop down and name it cert.p12.

Now covert the p12 file to a pem file:

$ openssl pkcs12 -in cert.p12 -out apn_development.pem -nodes -clcerts && rm -f cert.p12

Put apn_development.pem in config/certs in your rails app. For production, name your certificate apn_production.pem and put it in the same directory. See the environment section for more about environments.

Environment

By default, the development environment will always be used. This makes it easy to test your app in production before your iPhone application is approved and your production certificate is active. You can easily override this by adding this line in an initializer or environment file.

ApplePushNotification.enviroment = Rails.env.to_sym

You can also simply set ApplePushNotification.enviroment to :development or :production. Setting the ApplePushNotification.enviroment chooses the appropriate certificate in your certs folder and Apple push notification server.

Usage

You can use ApplePushNotification with an ActiveRecord model, standalone, or on any object.

ActiveRecord

Just add acts_as_pushable to your model.

class Device < ActiveRecord::Base
    acts_as_pushable
end

You can then send a notification like this

d.send_notification :alert => "I heart Rails"

The send_notification method accepts a hash of options for the notification parameters. See the Parameters section for more information.

Your model must have a device_token attribute. If you wish to change this to something else (like device for example), simply pass it like this acts_as_pushable :device.

Standalone

Simply call ApplePushNotification.send_notification and pass the device token as the first parameter and the hash of notification options as the second (see the Parameters section for more information).

$ script/console
>> token = "XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX"
>> ApplePushNotification.send_notification token, :alert => "Hello World!", :badge => 5, :sound => true
=> nil

Any Object

You can extend ApplePushNotification with any class. It will look for the device_token method when sending the notification. When ApplePushNotification is extended, if device_token= isn't defined, getters and setters are generated.

$ script/console
>> token = "XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX"
>> d = Object.new
>> d.extend ApplePushNotification
>> d.device_token = token
>> d.send_notification :alert => "So flexible"
=> nil

See the Parameters section for more information on what send_notification accepts.

Parameters

The following notification parameters can be defined in the options hash:

• alert - text displayed to the use
• sound - this can be the filename (i.e. explosion.aiff) or true which will play the default notification sound
• badge - this must be an integer

Notes

• The spaces in device_token are optional and will be ignored.

Copyright (c) 2009 Sam Soffes. Released under the MIT license. Forked from Fabien Penso.