APNS push does not support custom payloads

I'm planning to write a much more detailed documentation for the module soon. You're correct that feature isn't currently documented anywhere, but it can easily be accomplished by implementing hook_form_alter on the form that sends out the mass push notifications.

The code responsible for converting the form elements to the payload just takes the whole payload as defined in the form. I've actually added custom elements to the payload by extending push_notifications_admin_form through hook_form_alter this in a project that uses this module. Here's the code I was talking about:

/**
 * Submit handler for sending out a mass-push notification.
 */
function push_notifications_mass_push_form_submit($form, &$form_state) {
  $recipients = $form_state['values']['recipients'];
  $payload = $form_state['values']['payload'];
  $language = (isset($form_state['values']['language'])) ? $form_state['values']['language'] : false;

  // Send message to all iOS recipients.
  if (!empty($recipients['ios'])) {
    // Get all iOS recipients.
    $tokens_ios = push_notifications_get_tokens(PUSH_NOTIFICATIONS_TYPE_ID_IOS, $language);
    if (!empty($tokens_ios)) {
      $result = push_notifications_apns_send_message($tokens_ios, $payload);

You are absolutely right, it converts it to a format that doesn't work. Since push_notifications_apns_send_message only gets called in two places in the code, here's a patch as a suggestion to fix this. Basically, this patch requires the payload array to be a nested array under an 'aps' key, then it should also support custom payloads, for example the one you were trying to send above.

Could you try out and see if this makes sense and works?
Thanks!

Hey there. Great to see you're back. I'm excited to have you take a look at the code.

I'm sure you're going to to see this in the code yourself, but further below in the patch, I have the following few lines of code that should take care of the custom payloads. The hook that allows other modules to integrate custom payloads gets called in push_notifications_send_message, which is after the lines you mentioned.

+  // Allow for inclusion of custom payloads.
   foreach ($payload as $key => $value) {
-    $payload_apns['aps'][$key] = $value;
+    if ($key != 'aps') {
+      $payload_apns[$key] = $value;
+    }
   }
+
+  // Add the default 'aps' key for the payload.
+  $payload_apns['aps'] = $payload['aps'];
+

Let me know what you think.

Wouldn't be a more generic solution just expose the payload for other modules before having it sent to the servers?

Attached a proposed patch with drupal_alter() right before the payload is sent.

This way, interested modules only need to implement

hook_push_notifications_apns_payload_alter(&$payload_apns)
hook_push_notifications_g2dm_payload_alter(&$data)
hook_push_notifications_gcm_payload_alter(&$data)

In order to customize the payload.

I'm using this module's function
push_notifications_send_message($recipients, $message)

as an API to allow custom modules / rules actions to send the notifications, without using the admin UI form provided. That's why I think a generic drupal_alter solution would be more suitable for all use cases.

@marcoscano : I second your approach, which was exactly what I was intending on doing.
Although there is one caveat of using a hook there, which is that it has no access to the recipient.
I'll probably rollout a custom push_notifications_send_message where every payload is crafted individually, with information about badges and other user specific stuff.
The idea is to have a badge count functionality between client and server.

@rlustemberg: Changing the status of this issue back to "needs work". I'm totally open to a different approach of allowing other module changing the payload. Did you have a chance to create a patch the way you described it here: https://www.drupal.org/node/1735296#comment-10396309?

There're many thread for custom playload and this is the latest updated one. Above is a commit on 8.x, but this thread is 7.x. It's confused to the fix. I use the latest code and still can't find the way to send custom playload through UI or action of rules. It's a world of mobile now, it's surprised that this basic module is so cold.