Awesome

A Flutter plugin to use iOS 16.1+ Live Activities & iPhone 14 Pro Dynamic Island features.

🧐 What is it ?

This plugin uses the iOS ActivityKit API.

live_activities can be used to show dynamic live notification & implement dynamic island feature on iPhones that support it 🏝️

⚠️ live_activities is only intended to use with iOS 16.1+ ! It will simply do nothing on other platform & < iOS 16.1

👻 Getting started

Due to technical restriction, it's not currently possible to only use Flutter 🫣.

You need to implement in your Flutter iOS project a Widget Extension & develop in Swift/Objective-C your own Live Activity / Dynamic Island design.

ℹ️ You can check into the example repository for a full example app using Live Activities & Dynamic Island

• 📱 Native

  • Open the Xcode workspace project ios/Runner.xcworkspace.
  • Click on File -> New -> Target...
    • Select Widget Extension & click on Next.
    • Specify the product name (e.g., MyAppWidget) and be sure to select "Runner" in "Embed in Application" dropdown.
    • Click on Finish.
    • When selecting Finish, an alert will appear, you will need to click on Activate.

• Add the "Push Notifications" capabilities for the main Runner app only!.

  <img alt="enable push notification capabilities" src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istornz/live_activities/main/images/tutorial/push_capability.webp" width="700px" />

• Enable live activity by adding this line in Info.plist for both Runner and your Widget Extension.

<key>NSSupportsLiveActivities</key>
<true/>

• Add the "App Group" capability for both Runner and your widget extension. After you add the capability, check the checkmark next to the text field that contains an identifier of the form group.example.myapp. This identifier will be used later and refered to as YOUR_GROUP_ID.

  <img alt="enable live activity" src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istornz/live_activities/main/images/tutorial/app_group.webp" width="700px" /> <br />

ℹ️ You can check on this resource or here for more native informations.

• Inside your extension ExtensionNameLiveActivity.swift file, you need to create an ActivityAttributes called EXACTLY LiveActivitiesAppAttributes (if you rename, activity will be created but not appear!)

struct LiveActivitiesAppAttributes: ActivityAttributes, Identifiable {
  public typealias LiveDeliveryData = ContentState // don't forget to add this line, otherwise, live activity will not display it.

  public struct ContentState: Codable, Hashable { }

  var id = UUID()
}

• Create a Swift extension to handle prefixed keys at the end of the file.

extension LiveActivitiesAppAttributes {
  func prefixedKey(_ key: String) -> String {
    return "\(id)_\(key)"
  }
}

• Create an UserDefaults with your group id to access Flutter data in your Swift code.

// Create shared default with custom group
let sharedDefault = UserDefaults(suiteName: "YOUR_GROUP_ID")!

struct FootballMatchApp: Widget {
  var body: some WidgetConfiguration {
    ActivityConfiguration(for: LiveActivitiesAppAttributes.self) { context in
      // create your live activity widget extension here
      // to access Flutter properties:
      let myVariableFromFlutter = sharedDefault.string(forKey: context.attributes.prefixedKey("myVariableFromFlutter"))!

      // [...]
    }
  }
}

• 💙 Flutter

  • Import the plugin.

  import 'package:live_activities/live_activities.dart';
  

  • Initialize the Plugin by passing the created App Group Id (created above).

  final _liveActivitiesPlugin = LiveActivities();
  _liveActivitiesPlugin.init(appGroupId: "YOUR_GROUP_ID");
  

  • Create your dynamic activity.

  final Map<String, dynamic> activityModel = {
    'name': 'Margherita',
    'ingredient': 'tomato, mozzarella, basil',
    'quantity': 1,
  };
  
  _liveActivitiesPlugin.createActivity(activityModel);
  

  You can pass all type of data you want but keep it mind it should be compatible with UserDefaults

  <br />

Access Flutter basic data from Native 🧵

• In your Swift extension, you need to create an UserDefaults instance to access data:

let sharedDefault = UserDefaults(suiteName: "YOUR_GROUP_ID")!

⚠️ Be sure to use the SAME group id in your Swift extension and your Flutter app!

• Access to your typed data:

let pizzaName = sharedDefault.string(forKey: context.attributes.prefixedKey("name"))! // put the same key as your Dart map
let pizzaPrice = sharedDefault.float(forKey: context.attributes.prefixedKey("price"))
let quantity = sharedDefault.integer(forKey: context.attributes.prefixedKey("quantity"))
// [...]

Access Flutter files like pictures from Native 🧵

• In your map, send a LiveActivityFileFromAsset, LiveActivityFileFromUrl or LiveActivityFileFromMemory object:

You can use the factory .image() to use options like resizing image.

final Map<String, dynamic> activityModel = {
  'txtFile': LiveActivityFileFromAsset('assets/files/rules.txt'),
  'assetKey': LiveActivityFileFromAsset.image('assets/images/pizza_chorizo.png'),
  'url': LiveActivityFileFromUrl.image(
    'https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2015/10/01/17/17/car-967387__480.png',
    imageOptions: LiveActivityImageFileOptions(
      resizeFactor: 0.2
    )
  ),
};

_liveActivitiesPlugin.createActivity(activityModel);

ℹ️ Use LiveActivityFileFromAsset to load a file from your Flutter asset.

ℹ️ Use LiveActivityFileFromUrl to load a file from an external url.

ℹ️ Use LiveActivityFileFromMemory to load a file from the memory (from a Uint8List object).

⚠️ File like picture need to be in a small resolution to be displayed in your live activity/dynamic island, you can use resizeFactor to automatically resize the image 👍.

• In your Swift extension, display the image:

if let assetImage = sharedDefault.string(forKey: context.attributes.prefixedKey("assetKey")), // <-- Put your key here
  let uiImage = UIImage(contentsOfFile: shop) {
  Image(uiImage: uiImage)
      .resizable()
      .frame(width: 53, height: 53)
      .cornerRadius(13)
} else {
  Text("Loading")
}

• To display a txt file content:

let ruleFile = sharedDefault.string(forKey: context.attributes.prefixedKey("txtFile"))! // <-- Put your key here
let rule = (try? String(contentsOfFile: ruleFile, encoding: .utf8)) ?? ""

// [...] display the rule txt string variable here

Communicate between native 🧵 and Flutter 💙

In order to pass some useful data between your native live activity / dynamic island with your Flutter app you just need to setup URL scheme.

⚠️ It's recommended to set a custom scheme, in this example, la is used but keep in mind, you should use a more personalized scheme.

ex: for an app named Strava, you could use str.

• Add a custom url scheme in Xcode by navigating to Runner > Runner > URL Types > URL Schemes

• In your Swift code, just create a new link and open to your custom URL Scheme

Link(destination: URL(string: "la://my.app/order?=123")!) { // Replace "la" with your scheme
  Text("See order")
}

⚠️ Don't forget to put the URL Scheme you have typed in the previous step. (str:// in the previous example)

• In your Flutter App, you need to init the custom scheme you provided before

_liveActivitiesPlugin.init(
  appGroupId: 'your.group.id', // replace here with your custom app group id
  urlScheme: 'str' // replace here with your custom app scheme
);

• Finally, on the Flutter App too, you just need to listen on the url scheme Scheme

_liveActivitiesPlugin.urlSchemeStream().listen((schemeData) {
  // do what do you want here 🤗
});

Update Live Activity with push notification 🎯

You can update live activity directly in your app using the updateActivity() method, but if your app was killed or in the background, you can’t update the notification...

To do this, you can update it using Push Notification on a server.

• Get the push token:
  • Listen on the activity updates (recommended):

    _liveActivitiesPlugin.activityUpdateStream.listen((event) {
      event.map(
        active: (activity) {
          // Get the token
          print(activity.activityToken);
        },
        ended: (activity) {},
        unknown: (activity) {},
      );
    });
    

  • Get directly the push token (not recommended, because the token may change in the future):

    final activityToken = await _liveActivitiesPlugin.getPushToken(_latestActivityId!);
    print(activityToken);
    

• Update your activity with the token on your server (more information can be found here).

To set matchName for a specific notification, you just need to grab the notification id you want (ex. 35253464632) and concatenate with your key by adding a _, example: 35253464632_matchName.

That's it 😇

📘 Documentation

🤔 Questions

Do I have to code in Swift?

Yes you need to implement your activity in Swift but no worries, there is a lot of cool tutorials:

• https://canopas.com/integrating-live-activity-and-dynamic-island-in-i-os-a-complete-guide
• https://blorenzop.medium.com/live-activities-swift-6e95ee15863e
• https://medium.com/kinandcartacreated/how-to-build-ios-live-activity-d1b2f238819e

I have an issue when building my app on iOS: Error (Xcode): Cycle inside Runner; building could produce unreliable results.

This error occurs due to a build script ordering issue. Follow this guide to resolve it.

I can't see my live activity when I create it...

It can be related to multiple issues, please be sure to:

• App Groups Capability: Set up the App Groups capability for BOTH the Runner and your extension targets.
• Same App Group: Use the SAME app group for both the Runner and extension targets.
• Push Notification Capability: Verify that the Push Notification capability is enabled for the Runner target.
• ActivityAttributes Definition: In your extension’s ExtensionNameLiveActivity.swift file, ensure you create an ActivityAttributes named EXACTLY LiveActivitiesAppAttributes.
• Asset Size Limit: Images in live activities must be under or equal 4 KB. Use the resize factor argument to reduce image size if necessary.
• Supports Live Activities: Be sure to set the NSSupportsLiveActivities property to true in Info.plist files for BOTH Runner and your extension.
• iOS Version Requirement: The device must run iOS 16.1 or later.
• Device Activity Check: Confirm that the areActivitiesEnabled() method returns true on your device.

Is Android supported?

Currently, no, but the plugin does not crash when run on Android. This means you can safely install it in a hybrid app.

Simply call areActivitiesEnabled() before creating your activity to ensure it can be displayed on the user's device. 😊

👥 Contributions

Contributions are welcome. Contribute by creating a PR or an issue 🎉.

🎯 Roadmap

• Inject a Widget inside the notification with Flutter Engine?
• Migrate to Swift Package Manager.
• Support push token.
• Pass media between extension & Flutter app.
• Support multiple type instead of String (Date, Number etc.).
• Pass data across native dynamic island and Flutter app.
• Pass data across native live activity notification and Flutter app.
• Cancel all activities.
• Get all activities ids.
• Check if live activities are supported.