User notification

[larrymason]

User can set alarm when bus is at a pre-selected transit stop

[ProfessorTom]

To me, it only makes sense to have a notification if the user can switch from their browser to another app and still get the notification. Doing some quick Googling, it appears this is still browser specific and may not always work as intended, especially if the browser's process is fully suspended.

Chrome (presumably on Android and iOS) supports some kind of push notification and it looks like there is a Javascript library (yay!) called GoRoost that works for onsite notifications for most mobile browsers but only supports Chrome and Safari Desktop for off-site notifications.

This sounds like the kind of feature that belongs in a proper client-side app.

[huberf]

The notification can be done via SMS using Twilio. One line of code can take care of notifying the user. Twilio has a great NPM module.

[ProfessorTom]

Notifying via SMS is suboptimal; this requires a context switch to the SMS and then a second context switch back to the website which will most likely open in a new tab. It would be better if we could present a piece of os toast.

Furthermore, even with Twillo, I think it will take more than one line of code to implement this feature.

[huberf]

Snark Warning! Professor Tom, let me know when you've finished the native apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Fire OS and Palm OS complete with rich push notifications and predictive trolley alerts. For now, we can implement the suboptimal SMS, and, just as it will take multiple lines of code to initiate push notifications, it will, of course, take multiple lines of code to setup the SMS triggers, although the actual sending of an SMS message just takes a single line. Couldn't help myself with the brutal sarcasm. No offense intended.

[huberf]

Also, the user flow is closer to the following: Go to the website and initiate SMS alert. Go about your life and open many apps. Receive SMS message, and walk over to the bus stop.

[codewithtyler]

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