wordpress plugin blog
Push notifications were not working for the new firebase accounts because new firebase projects only supports http v1 apis while we were using v0 apis in androapp.
We added the support for http v1 api recently in 21.00 version of androapp plugin. You don’t need to do anything if push notification is working fine for you already except to ensure that v0 is selected in Firebase Api Settings section on AndroApp->Account Settings tab.
Otherwise follow this guide to use firebase http v1 api.
We have recently launched Push Notification support for custom post types in our AndroApp WordPress Plugin.
Before we tell more about our changes let us see what are custom post types?
Let’s say you have a quotes website than you can create a custom post type quote, similar to post OR page. This will help you with SEO with quote in every url OR you might want to create different post types to segregate the Posts for various reasons.
You can use this custom post type UI plugin to create a new custom post type, once you do that you will get the option to add new posts for that custom post type in wordpress admin panel.
For example, i created quotes as custom post type and i see this in my admin panel
When you upgrade AndroApp plugin to 19.01 or more, you shall also see push notifications for custom post types, head over to AndroApp->Account Settings tab to manage this behavior.
You can select the post types for which you don’t want to send push notifications
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679 is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union. It also addresses the export of personal data outside the EU. The GDPR aims primarily to give control to citizens and residents over their personal data and to simplify the regulatory environment for international business by unifying the regulation within the EU.
It was adopted on 14 April 2016, and after a two-year transition period, becomes enforceable on 25 May 2018. The GDPR replaces the 1995 Data Protection Directive. Because the GDPR is a regulation, not a directive, it does not require national governments to pass any enabling legislation and is directly binding and applicable.
The GDPR extends the scope of EU data protection law to all foreign companies processing data of EU residents. It provides for a harmonization of the data-protection regulations throughout the EU, thereby making it easier for non-European companies to comply with these regulations; however, this comes at the cost of a strict data-protection compliance regime with severe penalties of up to 4% of worldwide turnover or €20 million, whichever is higher.
To give our clients better experience, we at Androapp are using google analytics to capture crashes, renewal status and page hits for all the apps (apart from your own analytics). We as such are not collecting any personally identified information, however taking a cautious approach, we will disable this collection permanently.
[update]: We have disabled Google analytics from version 15.00 onwards
For those who submitted your app through us (using android app account). As we don’t have control over your app content
Also
We can not advise you as to whether you are GDPR compliant or not, you should consult your legal representative for the same.
However, we are working to give the best possible support to our partners to be GDPR compliant.
In general, you should check where all you are collecting user’s data, ex. Analytics, Ads (admob, appnext, admob, adsense others), push notifications, login forms, comments etc. and take appropriate action.
We are using below versions in our last update 15.00 (in android)
AppNext 'com.appnext.sdk:ads:2.3.0.469' 'com.appnext.sdk:banners:2.3.0.469' from AppNext team =>
Push Notifications com.google.firebase:firebase-messaging:15.0.2
Google Analytics and Admob 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:15.0.1' 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-location:15.0.1' 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-analytics:15.0.2'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation
Adsense: https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/7670013?hl=en&ref_topic=7670012
Analytics: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6366371?hl=en&authuser=1&ref_topic=2919631
Admob: https://support.google.com/admob/answer/7666519?hl=en-GB&ref_topic=2745287
For any queries or suggestions please feel free to contact us on contact[AT]androapp.mobi.
We recently added a new Menu option in AndroApp in last release version 11.00, Top Slider Menu.
Note:- Slider menu is available only on Android versions, it is not available in IOS versions as of now
We have done some improvements in Android Menu in our latest release version 10.00.
These are the main features of this change
these are some of the screenshots to give you a glimpse
AndroApp supports FontAwesome icons and by default we try to show the best possible icons ourselves, but obviously you might want to override those icons for some of your links.
to change the icons
Note:
In the last release we have introduced a new post content type, i.e. Slideshow
Androapp provides you the ability to load post detail page content in different ways, like pre processed, post processed, load as url already, with this new option, when a user clicks on feed image, post’s images will directly open as a slide show, like below
This feature is available from App version 9.00 onwards – so if you are on the older version, you need to publish a new apk to google play store, also you should give enough time for new version to distribute among your existing users before you enable slideshow.
We have been working on IOS version of AndroApp and it will work very similar to Android version, however there will be few differences to start with
Here is the feature comparison of both IOS and Android versions
| Feature | Android | IOS |
|---|---|---|
| Unlimited Push Notification | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dynamic Expandable Menu | ✓ | ✓ |
| Parallax Effect on featured Image on post detail page | ✓ | ✓ |
| Ads | Admob, AppNext, Mopub | Admob |
| Landscape Mode | ✓ | ✘ |
| Pull Down Refresh | ✓ | ✓ |
| Image Save | ✓ | ✓ |
| Offline Save | ✓ | ✓ |
| Social Shares | ✓ | ✓ |
| Comments | Wordpress, Facebook | Wordpress |
| Splash Image | ✓ | ✓ |
| Search | ✓ | ✓ |
| Deep Linking | ✓ | ✘ |
| Selective Ads Display on Screen | ✓ | ✓ |
| Different Fonts | ✓ | ✓ |
| Menu Icons | ✓ | ✘ |
| Horizontal Slider Menu | ✓ | ✘ |
We rolled out a big release(8.0.0) with lots of feature on 23rd April, below are the release notes for your reference
We did 2 big changes for comments in this release (i.e. 3rd and 4th)
which become transparent and ultimately disappears as you scroll the page.
You need to go to AndroApp->Configure and change comments provider to facebook, and uncheck the show comments count unless you want to show wordpress comments count
On clicking the floating comments icon in the app, user will be taken to comments screen where facebook comments will be loaded as below
So, update your WordPress AndroApp plugin now and try it out. let us know the feedback on the same.
We will tell you more about other changes related to ads in our next update, stay tuned.
We recently released a new feature to save posts for later read in android app version 7.0.0.
We received request from lot of our clients to provide an option to Save Post for offline reading.
This comes handy for your app users, who wants to save a post for later read, like a recipe or a long article. This can actually work like a Favorites too.
First of all update the AndroApp plugin, create a new apk, you will receive the new apk link, install this apk on your phone.
Now, when you visit a post, you will see three vertical dotted lines, click on that a new menu will pop with Save Offline option like below.
Select the Save Offline option and your post is saved for offline read.
Now, How to see the Offline post you just saved?
You should be able to see a new option “Saved Posts” in the main menu, this is added on top OR just after the Home menu option. clicking on that will show the list of saved posts.
What if you do not like the default text we used, for example you are having a puzzles website and you might want to show Saves Puzzles instead of Saved Posts ?
OR English is not the default language for your site/app.
You can change the texts from Androapp->Internationalization tab.
Bonus Tip: You can change the texts to Add to Favorites, Remove from Favorites, Favorite Posts and this feature will work like a Favorites feature.
This feature will work only for the posts with post content as pre processed or post processed.
Also, few images and scripts might not load depending on the space available on the phone.
Did you try the new Androapp release for wordpress mobile app plugin yet ?
We recently released an interesting feature called parallax effect in 6.0.9 release.
it is the effect when background image moves at a different speed than the rest of the content. read more about parallax effect here.
here is the demo for one of the app
try it out live by installing it from play store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.androapp.storytal.c2123
If you use featured images for your posts than you can install AndroApp WordPress plugin and create Android App for your wordpress blog in minutes.
If you are already using the plugin, update the wordpress plugin, create new apk, test your apk on your phone and publish this apk to google play store from developer console.
Just in case, You can enable/disable parallax effect for your mobile app from AndroApp->Configure page
