Android Views

By the end of this page your app will have a Support button that opens Feddy, and a message sent from it will be sitting in your inbox. It takes about five minutes. Feddy’s own screens are built with Jetpack Compose, but they run in an activity of the SDK’s own, so your app doesn’t need to use Compose, AppCompat, or any particular activity class. Everything below works the same from Java.

Before you start

A Feddy project and its project ID. You’ll find the ID under Settings → Install in the dashboard. No project yet? Create one first.
An app that compiles against API 35 or later. The SDK runs on Android 6.0 (API 23) and up, and its only dependencies are Google’s own AndroidX libraries and kotlinx-coroutines.

Add the dependency

In your app module’s build.gradle.kts:

build.gradle.kts

dependencies {
    implementation("app.feddy:feddy:0.1.0")
}

With a Groovy build.gradle, write implementation 'app.feddy:feddy:0.1.0'. It comes from Maven Central, which new Android projects already list under repositories. There are no permissions to add.

Tell Feddy which project this is

Do this once, when the app starts, before anything else can open Feddy. Calling it again later does nothing.

MyApplication.kt

import android.app.Application
import app.feddy.sdk.Feddy

class MyApplication : Application() {
    override fun onCreate() {
        super.onCreate()
        Feddy.configure(this, projectId = "fd_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX")
    }
}

From Java, the same call is Feddy.configure(this, "fd_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX");. If your app doesn’t have an Application class yet, add one and register it in AndroidManifest.xml with android:name=".MyApplication" on the <application> element.

The project ID isn’t a secret. It’s built into your app, so anyone who downloads the app can find it, and that’s fine: it only tells Feddy which inbox a message belongs to. Commit it to your repository like any other setting. There’s nothing to protect, so keep it out of local.properties and your secrets.

Give users a way in

Call present() from wherever users go looking for help. For most apps that’s a row in Settings or a toolbar button. Feddy opens full screen on its home: a greeting, a button to send a new message, and the user’s recent conversations. Back closes it.

SettingsActivity.kt

helpRow.setOnClickListener { Feddy.present(it.context) }

To show a count on that row when a reply is waiting, give Feddy a listener. It runs on the main thread, so you can update views directly. Remove it when the screen goes away:

SettingsActivity.kt

private val unreadListener = FeddyUnreadListener { count ->
    helpBadge.isVisible = count > 0
    helpBadge.text = count.toString()
}

override fun onStart() {
    super.onStart()
    Feddy.addUnreadCountListener(unreadListener)
    Feddy.unreadCount(unreadListener)   // the current count, right away
}

override fun onStop() {
    Feddy.removeUnreadCountListener(unreadListener)
    super.onStop()
}

Send yourself a message

Run the app, tap the row, and send a message. Then open your inbox at dash.feddy.app: it’s there, with the device model and app version alongside.Reply from the inbox. Back in the app, the reply appears in the conversation, and the row shows a 1 until the user opens it.

That’s the whole loop: a user writes in, you answer, and the answer reaches them inside the app.

Next steps

Identify users

Tell Feddy who’s logged in, so you see their name in the inbox and replies can reach them by email.

Unread badge

Other places to show the count, and when it refreshes.

Conversations

What you’re looking at in the inbox, and what happens on its own.

Android SDK reference

Every call in the library, with its signature and what it does.

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Android Views

Before you start

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Identify users

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Conversations

Android SDK reference

​Before you start

​Next steps

Identify users

Unread badge

Conversations

Android SDK reference

Before you start

Next steps