I needed a way to notify users that the server just received X number of new emails as I am using a server side plugin (360Works) to fetch mail every few minutes.

However unless someone actually does something that triggers a script they have no visual notification in the database to know there is new mail waiting. Or they have to leave outlook/mail open just to hear the chime.

I would like to introduce to you Boxcar http://www.boxcar.io an app/service that uses the push notification protocol to alert you on your iPhone with audible alerts, visual banners, badges, to see when an important event happened.

The setup is this: Sign up for Boxcar - you can choose from among different "services" that they have in their system. I elected "EMAIL".

Their method for getting notification was to have your email forward to them so that it a notice will be pushed - however I didn't feel comfortable forwarding confidential mail to some .io domain (Indian Ocean TLD)

You do this by adding a unique email address they provide to your mail forwarder.

[email protected]

In my situation I decided to take a different approach - after I fetched my email I then counted how many new messages were received - then formatted a new email and sent blank message to this unique email address with the subject: "8 new messages were received on FMS"

Within seconds my iPhone/iPad and MacBook all chimed with an alert. You can configure the OS X version to also work with Growl - the Mac app adds a menu to the menu bar:

I haven't fully dialed in all the settings fully, but you can even do some cool things with the app for example if you setup a custom service that would launch FMGO when a new push event happened. Inside the IOS app you can add a custom URL to the event and then use the fmp7script:// protocol to tell the IOS to launch FMGO targeting your script on the remote database to present the data you need. Reference

*According to the Boxcar website, Android and Windows versions of the app are coming (in beta) - so this will be very promising.

I haven't had a chance to investigate in any depth but it appears they also have an API that uses REST over HTTPS with JASON responses. Perhaps I will tinker with ScriptMaster that could be a way to talk directly to the SERVICE and perhaps be able to create a plugin and become a provider. I will keep you posted on that front.

I hope you enjoy, and i'd love to hear your experience.

Cheers

Stephen

Hi, can you elaborate on the mac side of things. Boxcar's websites only talks iOS, there's no download for a Mac app (anymore ?)

Thanks