Push Notification for Post and BuddyPress
Push Notification for Post and BuddyPress (PNFPB) delivers free web push notifications to desktop browsers, Android, and iOS devices using Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) HTTP v1, self-hosted WebPush (VAPID), OneSignal, or Progressier as the push provider. Notifications fire automatically when posts, custom post types, or BuddyPress events are published. The plugin also generates a full Progressive Web App (PWA) with offline cache support.
Push Notification Providers
Choose one or more providers to match your infrastructure:
- Firebase HTTP v1 (FCM) – recommended; supports browser, Android, and iOS. Free via Google Firebase.
- WebPush (self-hosted VAPID) – open standard; no Google account required; browser-only.
- OneSignal – hosted service; supports browser and mobile app push. Free tier available.
- Progressier – hosted PWA push provider.
- webtoapp.design – push for mobile apps generated by webtoapp.design. Can run alongside Firebase or OneSignal to reach both browser and app audiences simultaneously.
Notification Triggers
WordPress content
- New post or custom post type published (including bbPress topics).
- New WooCommerce product published.
- New comment on a post.
BuddyPress / BuddyBoss
- New activity update (supports
[member name]dynamic tag). - New group activity (delivered only to group members; supports
[group name]tag). - Activity comment posted.
- Private message sent — delivered only to the recipient (compatible with BP Better Messages).
- Friendship request sent — delivered only to the recipient.
- Friendship request accepted — delivered only to the requester.
- New member joined.
- Member avatar changed.
- Member cover image changed.
- Group details updated — delivered to group members.
- Group invitation sent — delivered only to the invited user.
- Activity marked as favourite / liked — delivered to the activity author.
- BuddyPress follow (requires BuddyPress Followers plugin).
Admin-only notifications
- Contact Form 7 submission received.
- New user registration.
Full documentation is available at wiki.pnfpb.com.
Scheduling
Every notification type can be sent immediately or scheduled using WordPress Cron (hourly, twice-daily, daily, weekly). For high-volume sites, enable background scheduling via Action Scheduler to process 200,000+ subscribers without hitting PHP execution limits.
On-Demand Push
Send a push notification to all subscribers at any time from the admin panel — with a custom title, message body, image, and click URL. One-time and recurring schedules (daily, weekly, monthly) are supported.
AI Assistant
PNFPB includes an optional AI assistant for two workflows:
- On-demand push – generate a notification draft from the current form data before sending.
- Post notification – generate suggested title, content, and send time from the post editor.
The AI layer uses a provider contract so the backend can be swapped later without changing the notification workflow. You can also control privacy settings so only the required content is shared with the AI provider.
Frontend Subscription Controls
- Custom popup prompt — configurable subscription dialog that appears automatically in the browser. Users can select which notification types they want (posts, activities, comments, friendships, etc.) at subscribe time or later.
- Bell icon prompt — persistent bell widget for subscribe/unsubscribe without a full page reload.
- BuddyPress profile tab — a Push Notifications tab is added to each member’s profile settings for managing subscriptions.
- Group subscribe button — subscribe/unsubscribe button added to BuddyPress group headers.
Shortcodes
[subscribe_PNFPB_push_notification]— renders an inline subscribe/unsubscribe button with a notification-type preference panel. All button labels and colors are configurable under PNFPB → Customize Buttons.[PNFPB_PWA_PROMPT]— renders the PWA install prompt. Use this when the automatic footer prompt is disabled and you want a specific page or sidebar widget to trigger the install flow.
Progressive Web App (PWA)
PNFPB generates a web app manifest (pnfpbmanifest.json) and service worker (pnfpb_icpush_pwa_sw.js) so visitors can install your site as a home-screen PWA on any device.
- Configure app name, short name, start URL, display mode, theme color, background color, and icons (192×192 and 512×512 PNG required).
- Define a list of page URLs to cache for offline viewing. Uncached pages fall back to a built-in offline page.
- Customisable PWA install prompt (banner or dialog style) with separate iOS guidance (Safari → Share → Add to Home Screen).
- iOS 17.0+ required for full PWA install support.
- NGINX servers: if dynamic file serving is unavailable, enable the static file option in PNFPB → NGINX settings to write the service worker and manifest as static files to the site root.
Mobile App Integration
- REST API — register FCM/APNs device tokens from native Android or iOS apps via
POST /wp-json/pnfpb/v1/subscribe. Allows push notifications to reach both web subscribers and native app users from the same WordPress event. - webtoapp.design — dedicated integration for WebView-based apps generated by webtoapp.design.
- Sample Android and iOS client code is available on GitHub (linked in the installation instructions below).
Multisite
The plugin is multisite-compatible. On network activation it creates the required database tables for every existing site, and automatically provisions tables for new sites added to the network.
Firebase Analytics
When Google Analytics is linked to your Firebase project the plugin sends notification_open, notification_read, and page_view events to the Firebase Analytics console for open-rate reporting.
Developer Extensibility
- Action hooks to trigger post or BuddyPress activity notifications programmatically from your own code.
- Filter hook
pnfpb_service_worker_extensionto inject custom JavaScript into the generated service worker — the standard integration point for combining PNFPB with other service-worker-based plugins. - Full hook, filter, REST API, and database schema reference: wiki.pnfpb.com/developer-reference/