Swift Notifications for iOS - Setting a Timeframe

Question

When a user sets up a notification for an item, they are asked for a timeframe in which they wish the notifications to trigger. For example, they want a repeating notification every 2 hours between 8am-8pm.

I know that I can run a for loop and setup separate notifications for 8am, 10am, 12pm, and so on, but I'm hoping there's a better solution.

There are two main reasons for doing it this way:

I won't hit the 64 local notification limit if I can setup a single notification that only triggers between the hours the user sets.
I can use a single identifier instead of needing to create and store every custom identifier for all of the separate notifications.

Also, I am trying not to have to use push notifications due to a user needing to have an active internet connection in order to receive them.

Here's my current function to schedule a notification:

func scheduleNotification(ident: String, hour: Int, minute: Int) {
        let content = UNMutableNotificationContent()
        content.title = "This is a test Notification"
        content.subtitle = "Just a test"
        content.sound = .default
        content.badge = NSNumber(value: UIApplication.shared.applicationIconBadgeNumber + 1)

        // calendar
        var dateComponents = DateComponents()
        dateComponents.hour = hour
        dateComponents.minute = minute
        
        let trigger = UNCalendarNotificationTrigger(dateMatching: dateComponents, repeats: true)

        let request = UNNotificationRequest(
            identifier: ident,
            content: content,
            trigger: trigger
        )
        UNUserNotificationCenter.current().add(request) { error in
            if (error != nil) {
                print("Error: \(String(describing: error?.localizedDescription))")
            } else {
                print("Successfully Scheduled")
            }
        }
    }

In a perfect world, instead of triggering via the UNCalendarNotificationTrigger and setting DateComponents(), I would instead do something like:

let trigger = UNTimeIntervalNotificationTrigger(timeInterval: (120x60), timespanStartHour: 8, timespanStartMinute: 0, timespanEndHour: 20, timespanEndMinute: 0, repeats: true)

Of course I know that timespanX parameters are not a thing. I was just trying to show an example of what would be a perfect scenario for my use case.

Swift Notifications for iOS - Setting a Timeframe

0 Answers0