| # Notifications | |
| The _**notifications panel**_ (also known as "masterbar notifications" and "the bell notifications") is a cross-environment app that runs directly inside of Calypso and in an `iframe` on WordPress.com sites which aren't Calypso. | |
| This module is where the code for the notifications panel lives. Calypso views are imported as normal `node` imports while the `iframe` version is served from `https://wordpress.com/widgets/notifications/` or from the legacy URL `https://widgets.wp.com/notifications/`. | |
| This code is developed in the calypso monorepo at <https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/tree/trunk/apps/notifications>. | |
| ## Building and developing | |
| Most work on the notifications panel should happen in Calypso the same way other Calypso changes are developed. | |
| That is, you can work in these files and rely on the normal Calypso dev server. | |
| **However** things are often different inside the `iframe` in unexpected ways and so we need to verify that any changes apply properly in both environments. | |
| TeamCity generates notifications panel build artifacts on every commit that it processes. You can find the last one in the PR checks by searching for `Notifications (WPCom Plugins)` then clicking the `artifacts` tab (requires access to the A8C TeamCity instance). | |
| Alternatively you can manually build the app with `yarn` and pass `--sync` to sync to your sandbox automatically (requires your to configure an alias called `wpcom-sandbox` in `~/.ssh/config`): | |
| 1. `yarn dev --sync` to sync a dev build to your sandbox; | |
| 1. `yarn build --sync` to sync a production build to your sandbox. | |
| You will also need to sandbox the `widgets.wp.com` domain. | |
| ```bash | |
| # Builds files and places them in `apps/notifications/dist` | |
| cd apps/notifications | |
| yarn build | |
| ``` | |
| You will need to follow the directions in the Field Guide to deploy these artifacts. | |
| ## iframe communication | |
| When running in an iframe communication with the parent frame occurs through a `postMessage()` exchange. | |
| Messages we handle from the notifications iframe have the form: | |
| ```js | |
| const obj = { | |
| type: 'notesIframeMessage', | |
| action: action, | |
| //... other properties depending on action ... | |
| }; | |
| ``` | |
| - `togglePanel`: This is a message from the client that the panel open state | |
| should be toggled. For example, the user may have pressed the ESC key, which | |
| means we should close the panel. | |
| - `iFrameReady`: The client sends this message when it's code has loaded and | |
| it is ready to begin polling for notifications. | |
| - `renderAllSeen`: A message to indicate that the user has seen all | |
| notifications (so we can clear the new notifications indicator). | |
| - `widescreen`: The client is requesting that it's frame width be changed. We | |
| use this to set the appropriate classes so the notifications frame is rendered | |
| wider when the user clicks into the detail view of a note or narrower when | |
| they close the detail view. When receiving this action, there will be a | |
| boolean property `widescreen` indicating if widescreen mode should be on or | |
| not. | |
| - `render`: Client sends this when the number of new notes changes. The property | |
| `num_new` will indicate the number of new notes available (possibly 0). The | |
| type of the latest note will also be available as a string in `latest_type`. | |