MB Notifications for Facebook

REALLY IMPORTANT: If you have any issue, things don't work as you expected or whatever else, please don't complain on the market since I have no way to help you out there: contact me in any of the following ways, I answer to everyone. The web page http://mikebannion.altervista.org/fb.html contains useful information related to the application. For any issue not reported there, or just if you want to tell me what you think of the application, feel free to contact me at mikebannionsw@gmail.com.


Let's face it, when it comes to Android, whether you like the official Facebook application or not it has one major flaw: no notifications! And this is even more true when you don't use any app for Facebook at all but just the browser, and yet want to keep updated. I frankly hate this: why would you have to check for updates yourself when you could get automatically notified whenever a notification from your Facebook account arrives, just as iPhone users do?

I decided to solve this issue for my own convenience, and so this is where this app chimes in: a lightweight and fast application to get notifications from Facebook, what you decide, at the interval you decide and reported as you decide. Nothing else, just as plain and simple as effective! Decide how to view the notifications:

   * open it in the official Facebook app, if installed;
   * open it in FriendCaster (either Free or Pro) if installed;
   * open it in Seesmic, if installed;
   * open it in the browser (either full view, Touch or WAP version);
   * or just open any other app you have installed (just opening the main activity of app, no custom behaviour)

The service can be started automatically at boot if you want, and a 1x1 widget is provided as well to explicitly request new notifications should you want to. A 4x1 widget is also available to show counters of unread notifications. (NOTE: the widgets will NOT work if you move the app to SD). Notifications can be received in the notifications bar and as popup dialogs (by also unlocking and/or waking the screen, if necessary). Details on all the required permissions are at the end of this page.


IMPORTANT: the app only gets NEW and UNREAD notifications, meaning it won't download, for example, all the notifications you already saw before launching the app or between refreshes.


Icon set realized by Elisa! (eli.palmiotto@gmail.com)
Thanks to Matthew for the Gingerbread status bar icons!
Pull to refresh implemented thanks to this library: https://github.com/johannilsson/android-pulltorefresh


This application is not affiliated with Facebook. Facebook is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.


PERMISSIONS EXPLAINED:

  * android.permission.INTERNET: to get notifications from Facebook;
  * android.permission.VIBRATE: for the optional vibrate functionality in notifications;
  * android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE: to avoid making unneeded requests if the network is unavailable;
  * android.permission.DISABLE_KEYGUARD: to unlock the lockscreen, if requested for popup notifications;
  * android.permission.WAKE_LOCK: to wake the screen, if requested for popup notifications;
  * android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE: to save pictures associated with notifications in the SD cache (the internal cache alone may be emptied arbitrarily and as such force the app to download the picture again, wasting bandwidth)
  * com.android.vending.CHECK_LICENSE: to check the license