1. Create Your Own:
Mobile Push-Notification Service
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2. Starting Point
• To expedite the tutorial process, I’ve
already created three models:
• User
• Device
• Permitted Apps
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3. app/models/user.rb
app/models/device.rb
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4. app/models/permitted_app.rb
Permitted App Migration
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5. User and Device Migrations
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6. Step 2(ish): Routes
config/routes.rb
lib/app_constraints.rb
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7. Behold, a versioned API
So, /api/users/ will default to version 1 of our API.
Is this a good idea? There’s a LOT of discussion about versioning APIs...
http://apiux.com/2013/05/14/api-versioning/
https://mathieu.fenniak.net/aint-nobody-got-time-for-that-api-versioning/
http://railscasts.com/episodes/350-rest-api-versioning
Do what feels comfortable / correct. I’m not too keen on having a default API route which may change behind-the-scenes, and
inadvertently break applications that use the API.
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8. Controllers and Authentication
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9. Controllers cont.
Additional info
http://railscasts.com/episodes/350-rest-api-versioning?view=asciicast
http://collectiveidea.com/blog/archives/2013/06/13/building-awesome-rails-apis-part-1/
http://railsware.com/blog/2013/04/08/api-with-ruby-on-rails-useful-tricks
https://github.com/rails-api/active_model_serializers
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10. Authentication
Additional info
http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionController/HttpAuthentication/Token.html
http://railscasts.com/episodes/352-securing-an-api?view=asciicast
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11. Authentication in Action
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12. Cool, we have a Users Resource which is accessible via the
routes we’ve created on /api/users... what does that have to
do with sending push-notifications to phones?
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13. How do Push Notifications work? (iOS)
Phase 1
Good documentation of the process can be found on Adobe’s site for Adobe AIR (seriously)
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/articles/ios-push-notifications.html
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Phase 2

14. Next, install a background processing
system of your choice
https://www.ruby-toolbox.com/categories/Background_Jobs
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15. iOS worker for Sidekiq
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16. Android worker for Sidekiq
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17. Final example
•
•
A final example with some additional features is available [1]
•
Primary Gems used:
Much credit is due to Ryan Bates for the API skeleton [2] and authentication
implementation [3], and wellwithme.com for their original Android/iOS push
notifications tutorial. [4]
•
•
•
•
•
Sidekiq
Sidetiq
Grocer
•
Friendly ID
GCM
Active Model Serializers
[1] https://bitbucket.org/momer/example-mobile-pns/src
[2] http://railscasts.com/episodes/350-rest-api-versioning
[3] http://railscasts.com/episodes/352-securing-an-api
[4] http://blog.wellwith.me/how-to-send-ios-and-android-notifications-from-your-rails-backend
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