Push Notifications (SMS/Email Notifications)

[Glavin001]

http://blog.mashape.com/post/56272188360/list-of-50-sms-apis

Twilio integration: https://www.twilio.com/blog/2013/03/introducing-the-twilio-module-for-node-js.html

Notifications:

• [ ] Web (Socket.io)
• [ ] E-Mail
• [ ] SMS
• [ ] Voice (Text-To-Speech with TwiML)

  Advanced Features:

• [ ] Scheduled notifications, https://github.com/ncb000gt/node-cron

[Danlock]

@Glavin001 you mentioned about a free twilio trial account, did you make one already?

[Danlock]

also twilio trial accounts can only send SMS messages to phone numbers registered with twilio, im unable to find any other SMS service that looks any better tho

[Glavin001]

@danlock I made a personal account but we should be able to just switch between each of our personal accounts -- have a configuration file that is loaded and each of ours will have our own account info. So 140 SMS each * 4 of us.

Yeah I couldn't find a better one either.

[Glavin001]

Another interesting article on Node.js and Twilio SMS: https://www.twilio.com/blog/2012/09/building-a-real-time-sms-voting-app-part-1-node-js-couchdb.html

[Glavin001]

For email: https://github.com/niftylettuce/node-email-templates

[Danlock]

i pushed up a push notifications module, but for some reason twilio isnt verifying any bahamian phone numbers i give it so i cant get a twilio number to test the code i made a twilio-cred file, if you put your twilio account creds there and your twilio number it should be able to work

[Glavin001]

Awesome, @Danlock ! I'll take a look now.

[Glavin001]

We now have a configuration module that is used.

Pull my branch:

git pull origin glavin

And the run our app:

node app.js

And it will create a copy of config.custom.sample.js to config.custom.js. You can quit our app. Edit config.custom.js to something like mine:

/**
Custom Configuration
This will take in the argument `config` and manipulate it's configuration values.
*/
module.exports = function(config) {

    // Server configuration
    config.server.production = true;
    config.server.multiCore = true;
   /*
// FOR WINDOWS:
config.server.redis.enabled = false;
*/ 

    // Twilio
    config.twilio.sid = "ACb08acfcdb50c00b820068d14fa4b5956";
    config.twilio.token = "598cfa4d5ea98c2e6adb5afa52956b51";
    config.twilio.number = "+17787620482"; // A number you bought from Twilio and can use for outbound communication

};

Yours will of course have different authentication values for Twilio.

Now run our app again:

node app.js

And you should be using your new custom configuration. The config.js contains all of the defaults.

To use in your own Node.js module call:

var config = require("./config");

Note that you may have to use the following since the relative path is different inside ./app/server/modules/:

var config = require("./../../../config");

[Glavin001]

Our internal API should all funnel down to a NotificationCenter, that will organize all push notification requests of various types.

For example:

// User object, containing properties for id, name, optional phone number, email, etc
var User = ...; 

// Notification Options
var options = { 
   web: true // Sent to Web app, via Socket.io
   , sms: true // Text message to User's phone number
   , voice: false // Twilio TwiML, Text to Speech to Users' phone number
   , email: true // Email to User's email
   , message: "This is the message." // Plain text message, for SMS and Voice
   , htmlMessage: "<strong>This is the message.</strong>" // HTML message, for Email body
};

// Send notification to User
NotificationCenter.send(User, options, function(error, result) {
   if (!error) {
      // Successful
      console.log(result);
   } else {
      // Error
      console.error(error);
   }
});

The NotificationCenter module requires the Email and Twilio modules and handles them accordingly. It will also use the config module:

// Configuration Module
var config = require("../../../config"); // Relative path to ./app/server/modules/

// Check if Email is enabled
console.log( config.email.enabed );
// Check if Twilio is enabled
console.log( config.twilio.enabled );

[Glavin001]

@Danlock, would you be interested in working on #52, if you finish this?