Improve answering calls by anakin78z · Pull Request #6015 · nextcloud/talk-android

anakin78z · 2026-04-01T16:47:07Z

Fixes some of the biggest annoyances with answering calls:

Allow answering a call from a locked phone without having to unlock the phone after answering. join call without unlock screen #1667 (kind of?)
Stop calls from ringing after answering. The ringing doesn't stop #5992
Update the incoming call notification to allow users to answer or decline. Call notification is not actually call #5922
Show caller avatar on incoming call notification

Also fixes #5351

🖼️ Screenshots

🏚️ Before

🏡 After

S-View case notification:

This matches other apps such as Facebook Messenger. I think we're getting this automatically by using `NotificationCompat.CallStyle`

🚧 TODO

There are a lot of other issues with calls. This is meant as some small changes that can have a big impact on usability.

🏁 Checklist

⛑️ Tests (unit and/or integration) are included or not needed
🔖 Capability is checked or not needed
🔙 Backport requests are created or not needed: /backport to stable-xx.x
📅 Milestone is set
🌸 PR title is meaningful (if it should be in the changelog: is it meaningful to users?)

mahibi · 2026-04-02T15:05:42Z

Thank you for contributing @anakin78z 👍

We will review this soon (will try today but i'm on vacation next week).
As a side note, depending on if #5928 is merged first, there could be more merge conflicts.

anakin78z · 2026-04-02T15:11:45Z

Thanks. I'm also waiting to hear back about thstyl2000#1 since they have a massive refactor plan. I'm not sure what stage they're at with implementation though.

mahibi · 2026-04-02T15:26:10Z

and i oversaw it's "just" a draft for now. Just set the state when it's ready to review and let us know if you have questions.

Switched call notification to NotificationCompat.CallStyle. This adds answer/decline buttons to the notification so that users can answer incoming calls. Adds caller avatar to notification. Signed-off-by: Jens Zalzala <jens@shakingearthdigital.com>

anakin78z · 2026-04-03T14:32:17Z

This is what was causing the lock screen to appear after answering a call.

anakin78z · 2026-04-03T14:35:37Z

@mahibi It doesn't look like there would be conflicts with #5928, as my code only changes call notifications, and the bubble code seems to only affect message notifications.

nimishavijay

This is a great improvement! :) One design concern though is that there is not a very big difference between an audio or video call as the text says "Incoming call" for both. So some small changes to reflect that better:

Could we change the text to "Incoming video call"?
Could we add an icon to the the video button to indicate that the camera wold be on when you join? it could be the videocam icon

anakin78z · 2026-04-09T17:39:57Z

@nimishavijay Hi, thanks for the feedback.
I was actually trying to get it to do that, but it looks like the system handles the incoming call display completely. So it may look different depending on what phone you have.
I'm using NotificationCompat.CallStyle.forIncomingCall here: https://github.com/nextcloud/talk-android/pull/6015/changes#diff-b51bc8baa586c30bbd846a44639cba62c95cde0f586adb76db389f9e74635914R349 which doesn't give us any real options other than .setIsVideo().

Docs here: https://developer.android.com/reference/androidx/core/app/NotificationCompat.CallStyle#setIsVideo(boolean)

I think we would have to use a custom style to change the text or add icons, but maybe that could be a separate task, since it would involve design work?

anakin78z · 2026-04-10T14:55:50Z

Updated description to note that it also fixes #5351

mahibi · 2026-04-13T10:30:30Z

Thank you @anakin78z
we will review this soon.

mahibi

great improvements @anakin78z 👍
just some minor comment and would like to have input how it's done on iOS..

mahibi · 2026-04-13T13:02:33Z

+import androidx.core.app.NotificationManagerCompat
+import com.nextcloud.talk.utils.bundle.BundleKeys.KEY_NOTIFICATION_TIMESTAMP
+
+class CallNotificationActionReceiver : BroadcastReceiver() {


i suggest
DeclineCallReceiver
as this is the only usecase

Initially I had it set up to add an additional action to the call notification to always give the option to answer with video or audio, but the way the extra action displayed I found it a bit cramped and inconsistent, so I removed it. We could, however, decide to add additional actions in the future, so I left this receiver more generic.

You can see how the action is being added on line 304 of NotificationWorker.kt: https://github.com/nextcloud/talk-android/pull/6015/changes/BASE..dcde0be993b7ee9733cdca5fa275c13b5b778caa#diff-b51bc8baa586c30bbd846a44639cba62c95cde0f586adb76db389f9e74635914R304

I can change the name if you don't think we'll add other actions. Or I could add some documentation to the Receiver explaining how it could be extended.

Edit: Actually, answering voice/video wouldn't have used this receiver. So it would have to be an unrelated action, and the only thing I can think of right now is maybe sending a text response instead of answering. But it's probably unlikely that we'd use this for anything other than declining calls for now.

I guessed it was a leftover from other approaches.
I'd suggest to go with DeclineCallReceiver.
Then you could also delete the ACTION_DECLINE_CALL action.

Fixed in 04606e3

mahibi · 2026-04-13T14:40:10Z

+            }
+            val callerPerson = callerPersonBuilder.build()
+
+            val isVideoCall = (conversation.callFlag and Participant.InCallFlags.WITH_VIDEO) > 0


Afaik call flags are still like this:
It's not possible to know if the caller has video enabled. The video flag is set if there is the possibility to use video, regardless if it's enabled or not.
So this will most of the times result in showing the video button even when the caller has no video enabled.

Would be less annoying if #708 would be solved.

@SystemKeeper @Ivansss how is this done on iOS?

In my testing it worked as intended:
If I initiate a video call, the video button shows, and if I initiate an audio call, it doesn't.

That may not handle edge cases, like the caller turning off their video, or switching from audio to video, but I think the most common use case is handled.

I'll wait to hear how it's handled on iOS though.

For iOS it's the same behavior that a call is offered as videocall.
However on iOS the camera is not activated automatically in this case but you have to enable it yourself. We should do the same.

In the prepareCall() method you find that onCameraClick() is called.
Could you please wrap this with the following check so it's only automatically enabled when the callscreen is not opened via a notification?:

if (!isIncomingCallFromNotification) { onCameraClick() }

I think this is the expected behavior for most people.

Fixed in be0bd8d

I will say, however, that I personally don't like this behavior. I'm not used to having to click an extra button to enable video for video calls. I think a setting would be nice for this. I can create an issue for it after this is merged.

I understand for some people it's not the expected behavior but as it's privacy related we should disable it initially.
I asked my team and they also voted to disable it.

Some background: the call flag just tells that there is a device existing that could transmit video. It does not say video is enabled. So most of the time the called person will see "incoming video call", but actually the other participant does not have video enabled. In this case, most people will be confused to unveil their own video after accepting the call but don't the the other participants video.

mahibi · 2026-04-14T15:26:04Z

+            val notificationId = extras.getInt(KEY_NOTIFICATION_TIMESTAMP, 0)
+            if (notificationId != 0) {
+                // cancel the notification to stop the call ringing
+                NotificationManagerCompat.from(this).cancel(notificationId)


this should work and fix the issue with the ongoing ringing.

however it should have been covered by the call of cancelExistingNotificationsForRoom method in performCall, but there seems to be a bug that this is not triggered sometimes.
I will continue debugging in the evening or tomorrow to sort things out..

i have some ideas what could go wrong, but it's not settled.

To simplify things, i suggest to keep your approach, but to remove the block

if (!TextUtils.isEmpty(roomToken)) { cancelExistingNotificationsForRoom( applicationContext, conversationUser!!, roomToken!! ) }

from the function getRoomAndContinue completely.
So even when other things go wrong, the ringing should definitely stop.

Just let me know if you want to do this or if i should take over from here.

@mahibi feel free to take over

Signed-off-by: Jens Zalzala <jens@shakingearthdigital.com>

Do not cancel the notifications in getRoomnstead, but do it with NotificationManagerCompat.from(this).cancel(notificationId) in processExtras (see commit dcde0be). It seems that things can go wrong that cancelExistingNotificationsForRoom was not reached which caused an indefinite ringing. The underlying cause why this is not reached is NOT fixed with this commit, but instead dismissing the notification in processExtras seems to be like a more reliable approach. Signed-off-by: Marcel Hibbe <dev@mhibbe.de>

Signed-off-by: Marcel Hibbe <dev@mhibbe.de>

mahibi · 2026-04-15T15:16:20Z

Thanks again @anakin78z 👍 👍

mahibi · 2026-04-15T15:16:51Z

/backport to stable-23.0

github-actions · 2026-04-16T02:14:20Z

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anakin78z mentioned this pull request Apr 1, 2026

Incoming-call orchestration refactor plan thstyl2000/talk-android#1

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anakin78z force-pushed the answering-calls branch from 6f538bb to dcde0be Compare April 3, 2026 14:29

anakin78z commented Apr 3, 2026

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anakin78z marked this pull request as ready for review April 3, 2026 14:32

sowjanyakch requested review from mahibi, nimishavijay, rapterjet2004 and sowjanyakch April 8, 2026 10:07

nimishavijay requested changes Apr 9, 2026

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mahibi requested changes Apr 13, 2026

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mahibi reviewed Apr 14, 2026

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anakin78z added 2 commits April 14, 2026 15:31

Renamed CallNotificationActionReceiver to DeclineCallReceiver.

04606e3

Signed-off-by: Jens Zalzala <jens@shakingearthdigital.com>

Don't enable the camera if call was answered via notification

be0bd8d

Signed-off-by: Jens Zalzala <jens@shakingearthdigital.com>

mahibi added this to 💬 Talk team Apr 15, 2026

github-project-automation bot moved this to 🏗️ In progress in 💬 Talk team Apr 15, 2026

mahibi approved these changes Apr 15, 2026

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update AUTHORS.md

9106d40

Signed-off-by: Marcel Hibbe <dev@mhibbe.de>

mahibi force-pushed the answering-calls branch from f5a3c22 to 9106d40 Compare April 15, 2026 14:54

mahibi merged commit 7983501 into nextcloud:master Apr 15, 2026
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[stable-23.0] Improve answering calls #6079

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anakin78z deleted the answering-calls branch April 15, 2026 15:20

mahibi mentioned this pull request Apr 15, 2026

The ringing doesn't stop #5992

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mahibi mentioned this pull request Apr 16, 2026

Backport/6079/improve answering calls #6085

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