Push to phone

A trigger can put a banner on your iPhone, even with HydraFE closed and the phone in your pocket. Tap the banner and HydraFE opens on that computer, with that character in front of you.

Setting it up

1. On the computer, turn on Hydra’s web page (the hub’s Web page setting) and pair HydraFE with it, as for playing from the phone.
2. Open that connection in HydraFE. The first time, iOS asks whether Hydra may send notifications: Allow.
3. The page says Push: iPhone is paired. That’s all: the phone pairs again by itself each time it connects, so a phone that gets a new address from Apple is never lost.

Then give a trigger Push to phone, beside its sound, banner and notification (see What a trigger does): the line it found, or words of your own. Whenever the trigger fires, every phone paired with this computer gets the banner, titled with the character’s name. Like the trigger’s other actions, a push comes at most once every cooldown.

A phone paired with several computers gets each one’s pushes, and a tap opens the computer the push came from.

.push

What leaves your computer

Apple only delivers a push to an app from a server holding the app’s key, so Hydra hands each push to a small relay run for HydraFE, and the relay hands it to Apple.

• Each push is sealed on your computer with a key only your phone holds, made by the phone when it first paired. The relay and Apple see “Hydra: A trigger fired.” and sealed bytes; the phone opens it and shows the real words.
• The relay keeps nothing but a fingerprint of each computer’s own token, so that strangers cannot send through it. It never writes a push down.
• What is paired is kept in push.json in Hydra’s data folder.

When it doesn’t come

• .push says no phone is paired: open the connection in HydraFE once more; it pairs as it connects. In iOS Settings › Hydra › Notifications, check notifications are allowed.
• .push test says the relay could not be reached: the computer has no internet, or the relay is down for a moment; the next push tries again.
• .push test says a phone no longer takes pushes: HydraFE was removed from that phone. It has been forgotten; install and open it again to pair.
• The banner says “A trigger fired.” instead of the words: the phone could not open it, usually a phone that was restarted and not yet unlocked. Tapping it still opens the character.
• A tap opens the list instead of the character: the push came from a computer this phone has no saved connection for, or its address changed. Open that computer’s connection once and later taps find it.