B4J Question Skype Incoming Alerter

[canalrun]

I would like to write an application, mainly for personal use, that would alert me to incoming calls on Skype by flashing a light bulb.

On my Windows 10 PC when Skype receives a call it pops up a notification on screen and also adds a notification to the "notification panel" (on the right side of the Win 10 is a panel that I'll call a "notification panel", since I don't know the correct name). I assume it also plays a ring tone.

Unless I happen to be staring at the screen, I will miss the call.

My much preferred development tool for this application would be B4J.

For the alert I would flash a Wi-Fi controllable LifX bulb by sending a UDP command. I see the jNetwork library – that should be easy.

Is it possible for B4J to recognize notifications. I've been looking at Microsoft Visual Studio and UWP. They have a "notification listener" that seems like it might do the trick. I would prefer not to have to use Visual Studio, though.

Is it possible to recognize notifications in B4J?

Thanks,
Barry.

 

[DonManfred]

Maybe https://docs.microsoft.com/de-de/az...fication-hubs-java-push-notification-tutorial ?

 

[canalrun]

Thanks.
From the description on their site…

Azure Notification Hubs provide an easy-to-use, horizontally-scalable push module that lets you send notifications to any platform (iOS, Android, Windows, Kindle, Baidu, etc.) from any back-end (cloud-based or local). Notification Hubs are suitable for both corporate and private customer scenarios. Here are some example scenarios:

• Send notification of breaking news to millions of low-latency recipients
• Send location-based vouchers to interested customer groups
• Send event notifications to users or groups for media / sports / financial / gaming applications
• Push transfer of advertising content to applications to engage and encourage customers to buy
• Notify users about corporate events such as new messages and work items
• Sending codes for multilevel authentication

it seems that this is a solution to broadcast notifications to a group of users on varying platforms. For example someone may want to broadcast a severe thunderstorm warning to thousands of users who have different devices.

The problem I have is that when somebody calls me on Skype, Skype pops up a notification on my Windows 10 PC, but if I'm not staring at the PC I don't see the notification and I miss the Skype call.

I envision an application running constantly on my Windows 10 PC that recognizes notifications, parses the notification to identify the ones from Skype, then performs some action (flashes a bulb).

I believe this requires the application running on my Windows 10 PC to have a "notification listener" that spies on all notifications and does something if it sees one arrive from Skype.

I wonder if this is possible to do using B4J. I have seen a Microsoft Visual Studio example that uses UWP and their notification listener.

Please correct me if I'm missing the proper information from the site you posted.

Barry.

 

[Jon Eskdale]

Not that it may be fun to try to solve this with B4J but I don't understand how you miss the call as there should be a ringing tone from your PC as well as the onscreen notification. Additionally, if you install Skype on your Mobile it will ring there as well (and if you have one on your watch). Skype calls are now supported on Amazon's Alexa Show if you enable it. So I generally have little excuse for missing a Skype call

 

[DonManfred]

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=51961
It is an SDK for Skype4Business though. And it is for Android.

 

[canalrun]

Not that it may be fun to try to solve this with B4J but I don't understand how you miss the call as there should be a ringing tone from your PC as well as the onscreen notification. Additionally, if you install Skype on your Mobile it will ring there as well (and if you have one on your watch). Skype calls are now supported on Amazon's Alexa Show if you enable it. So I generally have little excuse for missing a Skype call

Thanks.

I am deaf – audio alerts of any sort are a problem.

We have the same problem with doorbells and smoke alarms. I solve that by having Alerters (flashing bulbs) when either goes off.

I would do the same thing for Skype. Actually it's incredible that none of these software vendors think of such things.

Skype is really nice because their video calls allow us to interact with sign language and also Skype has the option for showing onscreen captions of what the other person is saying.

New
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=51961
It is an SDK for Skype4Business though. And it is for Android.

Thanks. Maybe I will have to look into Skype for business. There used to be an SDK for Skype, but they discontinued it.

Barry.

 

[udg]

One thing you could try:
1. check whether an incoming Skype call would raise a "phone ringing" event (on your mobile)
2. if yes, write a receiver that wakes up an app of yours in order to react to the call
3. your app could directly address the signaling bulb or send a message to a B4J program executing on your PC
4. if the latter, it will be the desktop program to activatethe signaling bulb

I know, a lot of work..but a good way to experiment with many features too.

 

[canalrun]

One thing you could try:
1. check whether an incoming Skype call would raise a "phone ringing" event (on your mobile)
2. if yes, write a receiver that wakes up an app of yours in order to react to the call
3. your app could directly address the signaling bulb or send a message to a B4J program executing on your PC
4. if the latter, it will be the desktop program to activatethe signaling bulb

I know, a lot of work..but a good way to experiment with many features too.

That's a good suggestion. Thanks.

I also run Skype on my Android phone – same account.

I assume by "phone ringing" you mean the PhoneStateChanged state to "ringing" event in the Phone library.

I can then issue Wi-Fi UDP from the phone as long as it's connected to the same network as the alerter bulb – definite possibility.

I wrote a feedback to Microsoft to add "external flasher" to their Accessibility features for notifications. Maybe something will happen .

Barry.