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1208 support android auto notifications - #6012

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anakin78z wants to merge 2 commits into
nextcloud:masterfrom
anakin78z:1208-support-android-auto-notifications
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1208 support android auto notifications#6012
anakin78z wants to merge 2 commits into
nextcloud:masterfrom
anakin78z:1208-support-android-auto-notifications

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@anakin78z

@anakin78z anakin78z commented Mar 31, 2026 •
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This addresses issue #1208 and also implements sender profile picture display in notifications.

I left the profile picture code as a separate commit, if for some reason we didn't want to merge that now. The notifications look pretty bad without it on Android Auto though.

🖼️ Screenshots

20260331_125808
The first notification is from Nextcloud Talk. The second is from Google Messages for comparison.

Full video demo here: https://youtu.be/VWINe70FJkE

🏚️ Before 🏡 After
Notification without avatar Notification with avatar
Screenshot_20260331_122241_One UI Home Screenshot_20260331_123229_One UI Home

TESTING

Please check the SETUP.md file for instructions on how to test with Android Auto. It took me waaaaay too long to figure out why notifications weren't showing up with my implementation 😅

🚧 TODO

Optional: Image notifications currently do not get stacked with text only messages. They also do not use the same Avatar style in notifications. This is because image notifications use NotificationCompat.BigPictureStyle instead of NotificationCompat.MessagingStyle. We could update it to use MessagingStyle, but the images could display smaller. E.g.

BigPictureStyle MessagingStyle
Screenshot_20260331_113346_One UI Home Screenshot_20260331_112812_One UI Home

Note that these screenshots do not have any of the avatar work applied.

It looks like picture preview in notifications is a recent thing, so I didn't want to mess with it too much, but let me know if you'd prefer to have that changed/implemented as part of this PR.

🏁 Checklist

  • ⛑️ Tests (unit and/or integration) are included or not needed
  • 🔖 Capability is checked or not needed
  • 🔙 Backport requests are created or not needed: /backport to stable-xx.x
  • 📅 Milestone is set
  • 🌸 PR title is meaningful (if it should be in the changelog: is it meaningful to users?)

@anakin78z
anakin78z force-pushed the 1208-support-android-auto-notifications branch from c1df884 to de4c146 Compare March 31, 2026 19:28
@AndyScherzinger
AndyScherzinger requested a review from mahibi March 31, 2026 19:58
@AndyScherzinger AndyScherzinger added enhancement New feature or request 3. to review Waiting for reviews feature: notifications 🔔 labels Mar 31, 2026
@mahibi

mahibi commented Apr 2, 2026

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Thank you @anakin78z

We will review soon.

As a side note:

In the past there were already two approaches to support Android Auto which then were declined by Google Play review process for unknown reasons (The last time it was introduced with #5481 and then reverted again with #5880 )

  • A note to myself: Before releasing this, doublecheck that the testserver for google is running with guest app enabled (it may be the reason for the decline, although then the reasoning is very misleading again).

@anakin78z

anakin78z commented Apr 3, 2026

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Odd.

There are a few things in my PR which may or may not have addressed some issues they found:

  1. I believe the pending intent for the mark as read action needs PendingIntent.FLAG_IMMUTABLE
  2. I believe the way getStyle was set up in NotificationWorker it showed the notification as being self sent, which android auto would have ignored. MessagingStyle should be set up with the Person object for the current user, and addMessage should use the Person object for the sender.
  3. The conversation title was empty (possibly only for one on one conversations), and the profile picture was absent, so there was no way to tell who the sender of a message was in Android Auto.

@mahibi

mahibi commented Apr 13, 2026

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Odd.

There are a few things in my PR which may or may not have addressed some issues they found:

1. I believe the pending intent for the mark as read action needs `PendingIntent.FLAG_IMMUTABLE`

2. I believe the way `getStyle` was set up in `NotificationWorker` it showed the notification as being self sent, which android auto would have ignored. MessagingStyle should be set up with the Person object for the current user, and `addMessage` should use the Person object for the sender.

3. The conversation title was empty (possibly only for one on one conversations), and the profile picture was absent, so there was no way to tell who the sender of a message was in Android Auto.

Thank for the hints and please excuse the delay (i was on vacation).
We will review soon.

@github-actions

github-actions Bot commented Apr 15, 2026

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@mahibi

mahibi commented Apr 15, 2026

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@rapterjet2004 can you take over the review?

@mahibi
mahibi requested a review from rapterjet2004 April 15, 2026 08:16
@anakin78z
anakin78z force-pushed the 1208-support-android-auto-notifications branch from de4c146 to 1498f18 Compare April 23, 2026 16:58
@anakin78z

anakin78z commented Apr 23, 2026

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fixed merge conflict

@anakin78z
anakin78z force-pushed the 1208-support-android-auto-notifications branch from 1498f18 to 1a4662e Compare April 27, 2026 20:41
@mahibi

mahibi commented Apr 29, 2026

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Please excuse the current delays in pull request reviews.
The PR is on our list.

@mahibi

mahibi commented May 12, 2026

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We are now trying to catch up with the pull request reviews. The PR is not forgotten and should be picked up soon.

@mahibi mahibi mentioned this pull request May 26, 2026
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@mahibi

mahibi commented Jun 9, 2026

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still on our list!

@mahibi

mahibi commented Jun 24, 2026

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..and still on our list. @rapterjet2004 could you schedule it for review?

@mahibi

mahibi commented Jul 6, 2026

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still on our list!

@anakin78z anakin78z mentioned this pull request Jul 18, 2026
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@rapterjet2004

rapterjet2004 commented Aug 21, 2026

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Sorry about the delay, this is still on my TODO list

rapterjet2004
rapterjet2004 previously approved these changes Aug 21, 2026
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@github-project-automation github-project-automation Bot moved this to 🏗️ In progress in 💬 Talk team Aug 21, 2026
@anakin78z @rapterjet2004
Summary of Changes
0506edd 
🚀 Features & Improvements
•
Unified Messaging Style: Migrated all chat notifications (including images) to use NotificationCompat.MessagingStyle. This ensures that text and image messages from the same conversation are correctly stacked in the notification shade and work seamlessly with Android Auto.
•
Efficient Avatar Loading: Optimized the notification flow by loading the sender's profile picture once and reusing it for the notification style, the large icon, and the conversation shortcut.
•
Image Previews in Conversations: Implemented a secure mechanism to share image previews in MessagingStyle by saving them to a temporary cache and sharing them via FileProvider.
•
Modern Conversation Shortcuts: Enhanced the pushConversationShortcut logic to include the sender's avatar, improving the "People" integration in Android 11+.
🛡️ Security
•
PendingIntent Hardening: Performed a security audit and updated all PendingIntent flags to FLAG_IMMUTABLE by default. FLAG_MUTABLE is now only used where strictly necessary (e.g., for direct replies from notifications).
🧹 Code Quality
•
Refactoring: Consolidated duplicate styling logic into a single styleConversationNotification function.
•
Cleanup: Removed obsolete styling methods and unused imports.
•
Static Analysis: Verified all changes with ktlint and detekt. Added necessary suppressions for legacy complexity in NotificationWorker.kt to ensure a clean build.
AI-assistant: Gemini 2.0 Flash (plan: Gemini 2.0 Flash, edit: Gemini 2.0 Flash)

Signed-off-by: rapterjet2004 <juliuslinus1@gmail.com>
@rapterjet2004
rapterjet2004 self-requested a review August 21, 2026 17:32
@rapterjet2004
rapterjet2004 dismissed their stale review August 21, 2026 17:32

rebase error

@rapterjet2004
Rebase fix
51550e9 
Signed-off-by: rapterjet2004 <juliuslinus1@gmail.com>
@rapterjet2004
rapterjet2004 force-pushed the 1208-support-android-auto-notifications branch from 54f52fb to 51550e9 Compare August 21, 2026 17:33
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3. to review Waiting for reviews enhancement New feature or request feature: notifications 🔔 feedback-requested

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@anakin78z @mahibi @rapterjet2004 @AndyScherzinger