[Feature Request] Make history items clickable to open original notifications or apps

[estiaksoyeb]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Currently, the History section acts as a static log. When a notification is filtered/blocked, users cannot interact with it. If a user wants to view a message or alert that was caught by a filter, they must exit NotiFilter, find the app manually, and navigate to the content. This limits the usefulness of the history as a "functional inbox."

Describe the solution you'd like

I would like to see an "Open" action for each notification in the history. This would ideally:

1. Attempt to trigger the original PendingIntent of the notification if it is still valid in memory.
2. Fall back to launching the source application's main activity if the specific intent has expired or the phone has restarted.

[BURG3R5]

I appreciate your interest in NotiFilter and contributing to it. After this discussion is concluded, we can proceed to development and review.

Firstly, is the history supposed to be a "functional inbox"? In my opinion, the ideal situation for NotiFilter is: You create the filters, then forget about the app entirely, leaving it to do its work in the background. If the history is supposed to be an inbox, UX may have to change. The hard-coded limit of 100 notifications may prove to be insufficient. More details about the notifications should probably be stored.

There are several alternatives. Perhaps a new Action could be created. Perhaps simply launching the app will suffice for most use-cases. Perhaps the OS's notification history could be leveraged.

But before any of that—and I'm sorry if this is rude—I must ask whether this idea is born out of any practical use, or was it simply suggested by a machine? After some recent events, I'm unwilling to take leaps of faith.

[estiaksoyeb]

It's definitely for practical use. Some users may want to use their phone noiselessly and check all notifications once or twice a day. It will be very useful for them.

I myself used to use an app to block notifications to keep myself noiseless, and I found it very productive too.

[BURG3R5]

I fear that this may be an XY Problem.

Could this use-case be remedied using the existing MUTE action? Or how about a new WIDGET action, which dismisses notifications from the display but displays them in a home-screen widget?

Making the History screen replicate the OS's notification shade seems like a last resort...

[deepu2]

I wanted to create an issue for this too. When you click on a notification from the system notification history screen (I'm on Pixel), it opens as if the notification was pressed. It would be useful to have that feature. My use case is, I block the ads, but sometimes I'm curious what it is and want to check it out. The system logs for only go back for a day I believe.

[BURG3R5]

Nice coincidence; I was just about to push a commit that would make widget tiles actionable (containing both contentIntent and actions).

[BURG3R5]

@deepu2 Currently I haven't made the notifications in the History screen clickable, just the ones in the home-screen widget. The idea being that users will configure filters targeting potentially important/interesting notifications to send them to the widget, while the History will contain everything (including the uninteresting stuff).

Does that suit your use-case? Or should I make the History screen actionable too?

[deepu2]

I'd say make the history screen actionable too. I don't really use widgets (partially because KISS launcher doesn't really support adding too many) and I only learned now notifilter has widgets.

[estiaksoyeb]

Dear Dev, could you please check this out: https://github.com/estiaksoyeb/NotiFilter? I mean, check the app. I modified it for myself to use. I've been using it for 5 days, and it's works well for me. You could get the idea from it.

[BURG3R5]

Nice work, from the README it looks like a great alternative for users wanting a different focus. Haven't seen the diff yet, but I'll be sure to check it out once I get done with this release.

[BURG3R5]

Available in v4.6.0.