See also: Create Rich Pages.
Landing pages and Message Center messages can be visually identical, but there are a few differences.
| Difference | Landing Page | Message Center |
|---|---|---|
| Access | Opened by tapping a push notification or in-app message. | Listed in the Message Center inbox. Opened directly from the inbox or by tapping a push notification or in-app message. |
| Appearance | Overlay, with (close/delete) button, which closes the page and takes the user to the app's home screen. | Fullscreen, with message title and navigation back to the Message Center inbox. (You configure how the message appears in the list of messages in the inbox.) |
| Persistence | When closed, the user no longer has access to the page. | The message stays in the Message Center inbox until it expires or is deleted. Message Center inboxes are limited to 250 messages. Exceeding the limit deletes the oldest messages first. |
| Implementation | Out of the box with Android or iOS SDK version 4.0 or higher. | Out of the box with Android or iOS SDK 7.0 or higher. Message Center requires some development time, usually ~6 hours, most of which is spent making sure the UI is brand-appropriate. |
| Expiration | Not supported. | Messages expire after 1 year or per message expiration setting. Expired messages no longer appear in a user's Message Center inbox. |
| Custom KeysAdditional key-value pairs in your push notification payload for use by custom code in your app. You can use custom keys to pass additional campaign identifiers for analytics, pass user information to the device, control the look and feel of the app, provide image links, etc. | Not supported. | Supported. |
| Hosting and size limit | Hosted in a CDN, ensuring responsive load times for your users globally. Hosted rich page content — including embedded CSS, images and JavaScript — is limited to 1536K.1,2 | |
| Available composers and APIs | Message (/push), Automation(/pipelines), A/B Test (/experiments), Journey | Message (/push), Automation(/pipelines), Journey |
1. Although Airship allows landing page sizes up to 1536K, the ideal page size is much smaller, given the potential for degraded download speeds on cellular networks. We recommend that you optimize your images and HTML to keep total page sizes under 100K.
2. If you have additional assets to load, you can host them in another location and link to them from the landing page. Airship offers additional asset hosting options as a Professional Service. Contact Airship Sales for more details.
Left: Landing page. Overlay, with (close/delete) button. Right: Message Center message. Fullscreen, with message title and navigation back to the Message Center inbox.
Choosing a Rich Page Format
Questions to ask when choosing between landing page and Message Center:
Is there sufficient development time for incorporating Message Center?
You will generally need 1-3 lines of code for a functional version, and then you'll spend additional time customizing the Message Center to fit the look and feel of your app.Is there a one-time code (such as a coupon code) in the message the user might need in the future?
If so, choose Message Center.Are there specific instructions or other types of data the user might need to return to?
If so, choose Message Center.
Rich Page Template Fields
Rich pages use HTML. You can use Airship standard templates, have Airship add custom templates to your account, or upload your own per-message HTML. Page elements in a template are controlled by various fields:
| Field Type | Use and Detail |
|---|---|
| Image | Displayed in the body of the message. Upload a .jpg, .gif or .png file. Size limit is 512 KB. |
| Link | The action that occurs when the a user taps a button or image in the message. Available actions:
URLA URL opens on top of the current page (in the same webkit view), not the mobile browser. Enter a URL.ShareShare prompts the user to share your message with apps, social media accounts, and other services. Enter the text you want to accompany the share, including any promotional information, shortened links, hashtags, etc.You can also add or remove a tag when your audience taps the button or image. |
| Onload | Add or remove tags when the rich page loads. This tags every user who opens the rich page, whether they've reached it through a push, a badge, or by chance. |
| Text | Displayed in a headline, message body, button label, etc. |
| Video | Displayed in the body of the message. Enter a URL. |
Rich Page Standard Templates
Airship provides three standard templates: Text, Image, and Video. The default elements for each are enabled when creating the page but can be toggled off.
| Element | Field type | Text template | Image template | Video template |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Page | Onload | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Headline | Text | ✓ | ✓1 | ✓ |
| Content | Text | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Button | Text, Link | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Image | Image, Link | ✓ | ||
| Video | Video | ✓ |
1. Labeled Heading in the Image template.